Randolph Harris II International Institute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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MILLS STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

Now Selling!

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

Watch the Walkthrough of Residence #2

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Have I Ever Loved Anyone? I Do Not Really think I Have Ever Loved Anyone!

ImageMay we never let the things we cannot have, or do not have, or should not have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness, let us not forget it, for one of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the thing we cannot or should not have. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks,” reports 1 Thessalonians 5.16-18. “In everything give thanks.” These are the words that we want to make the center of our meditation. Do we need this admonition? Is not “thank you” one of the most frequently employed phrases in our language? We use it constantly for the smallest services performed, for a friendly word, for every word praising ourselves and our acts. We use it whether we are grateful or not. Saying thanks has become a form that is employed with or without feeling. When we mean it, we must therefore say it with great emphasis and in strong words. Anyone who observes the behavior of religion groups—ministers as well as laymen—is familiar with their inclination to say “thank you” to God almost as often as to their neighbors. It seems important, therefore, to ask the reason for this behavior towards humans and God. Why do we thank? What does it mean to give thanks and to receive thanks? Can this event of our daily life, and of daily religious life, be understood in its depth and elevated above automatic superficiality? #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

ImageIf this proves possible, we might discover that the simple “thank you” can tell us much about what we are withing ourselves and our World. We might find that one of the most used and abused words of our language can become a revelation of the deeper levels of our being. When we ponder the experiencing and giving of love, which is related to giving thanks, I think of one governmental executive in a group in which I participated, a man with high responsibility and excellent technical training as an engineer. At the first meeting of the group he impressed me, and I think others, as being cold, aloof, somewhat bitter, resentful, and cynical. When he spoke of how he ran his office, it appeared that he administered it by the book, without any warmth or human feeling. In one of early sessions he was speaking of his wife, and a group member asked him, “Do you love your wife?” He paused for a long time and the questioner said, “O.K. That is answer enough.” The executive said, “No. Wait a minute. The real reason I did not respond was that I was wondering, ‘Have I ever loved anyone?’ I do not really think I have ever loved anyone.” A few days later, he listened with great intensity as one member of the group revealed many personal feelings of isolation and loneliness and spoke of the extent to which he had been living behind a façade. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImageThe next morning the engineer said, “Last night I thought and thought about what he told us. I even wept bit myself. I cannot remember how long it has been since I have cried, and I really felt something. I think perhaps what I felt was love.” It is not surprising that before the week was over, I had thought through different ways of handling his growing son, on whom he had been placing very rigorous demands. He had also begun to really appreciate the love his wife had extended to him—love that he now felt he could in some measure reciprocate. Because of having less fear of giving or receiving beneficial feelings, I have become more able to appreciate individuals. I have come to believe that this ability is rather rare; so often, even with our children, we love them to control them rather than loving them because we appreciate them. One of the most satisfying feelings I know—and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person—comes from appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate the Sun changing angles in the sky. If I can let them be, people are just as wonderful as what we call Sunsets. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a Sunset is that we cannot control it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

ImageWhen I look at a Sunset as I did the other evening, I do not find myself saying, “Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.” I do not do that. I do not try to control a Sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds. When I can appreciate my staff member, my son, my daughter, my friends, in this same way, I like myself best. I believe this is an attitude of the self-actualized; for me it is a most satisfying one. It is important not to seek any reward, not even being reborn in a paradise. We must seek the welfare of humanity. I seek to enlighten those who harbor wrong thoughts. I cannot help teaching confidence in the laws of life or expressing joy in the inspiration of life. One cannot help making strong affirmations of the Soul’s dominion and power. One is exultant because one is in harmony with the Universe. Saying thanks is not always merely a form of social intercourse. Often we are driven by real emotions; we are almost compelled to thank someone, whether one expects it or not. And sometimes our emotion overpowers us and we say thanks in words much too strong for the gift we have received. This is not dishonest. It is honestly felt in the moment. However, soon afterwards we feel somehow empty, somehow ashamed—not much perhaps, but a little! #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageOccasionally, it also happens that for one moment we feel abundantly grateful. However, since for external reasons, we have no immediate opportunity to express our thanks, we forget it and it never reaches the one to whom we are grateful. Of the ten lepers who were held by Jesus probably none was without abundant gratefulness to Jesus, but only one returned from the priests who whom they had shown themselves to thank Jesus. And Jesus was astonished and disappointed. I have suggested way in which the performance of an individual accentuates certain maters and conceals others. If we see perception as a form of contact and communion, then control over what is perceived is control over contact that is made, and the limitation and regulation of what is shown is a limitation and regulation of contact. There is a relation here between informational terms and ritual ones. Failure to regulate the information acquired by the audience involves possible disruption of the projected definition of the situation; failure to regulate contact involves possible ritual contamination of the performer. It is a widely held notion that restrictions placed upon contact, the maintenance of social distance, provide a way in which awe can be generated and sustained in the audience, in which the audience can be held in a state of mystification in regard to the performer. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImageHow far it is possible for a person to work upon others through a false idea of oneself depends upon a variety of circumstances. As already pointed out, the person may be a mere incident with no definite relation to the idea of one, the latter being a separate product of the imagination. This can hardly be except where there is no immediate contact between leader and follower, and partly explains why authority, especially if it covers intrinsic personal weakness, has always a tendency to surround itself with forms and artificial mystery, whose object is to prevent familiar contact and so give the imagination a chance to idealize. The discipline of armies and navies, for instance, very distinctly recognizes the necessity of those forms which separate superior from inferior, and so help to establish an unscrutinized ascendency in the former. In the same way manners are largely used by people of the World as a means of self-concealment, and this self-concealment serves, among other purposes, that of preserving a sort of ascendancy over the unsophisticated. One night the King of Norway told me of his difficulties in face of the republican leanings of the opposition and how careful in consequence he had to be in all he did and said. He intended, he said, to go as much as possible among the people and thought it would be popular if, instead of going in an Ultimate Driving Machines, he and Queen Maud were to use the tramways. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

ImageI told him frankly that I thought this would be a great mistake as familiarity bred contempt. As a naval officer he would know that the captain of a ship never had his meals with the other officers but remained quite aloof. This was, of course, to stop any familiarity with them. I told him that he must get up on a pedestal and remain there. He could then step off occasionally and no harm would be done. The people did not want a King with whom they could hob-nob but something nebulous like the Delphic oracle. The Monarchy was really the creation of each individual’ brain. Every person liked to think what one would do, if one was King. People invested the Monarch with every conceivable virtue and talent. If they saw the King going about like an ordinary man in the street, they were bound therefore to be disappointed. The logical extreme implied in this kind of theory, whether it is in fact correct or not, is to prohibit the audience from looking at the performer at all, and at times when celestial qualities and powers have been claimed by a performer, this logical conclusion seems to have been put into effect. Of course, in the matter of keeping social distance, the audience itself will often co-operate by acting in a respectful fashion, in awed regard for the sacred integrity imputed to the performer. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageTo act upon the second of these decisions corresponds to the feeling (which also operates elsewhere) that an ideal sphere lies around every human being. Although differing in size in various directions and differing according to the person with whom one entertains relations, this sphere cannot be penetrated, unless the personality value of the individual is thereby destroyed. A sphere of this sort is placed around humans by their honor. Language very poignantly designates an insult to one’s honor as “coming too close,” the radius of this sphere marks, as it were, the distance whose trespassing by another person insults one’s honor. The human personality is a sacred thing; one does not violate it nor infringe its bounds, while at the same time the greatest good is in communion with others. It must be made quite clear, in contradiction to the implications that awe and distance are felt toward performers of equal an inferior status as well as (albeit not as much) toward performers of superordinate status. Whatever their function of the audience, these inhibitions of the audience allow the performer some elbow room in building up an impression of one’s own choice and allow one to function, for one’s own good or the audience’s, as a protection or a threat that close inspection would destroy. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageThe matter which the audience leave alone because of their awe of the performer are likely to be the matters about which one would feel shame were a disclosure to occur. We have, then, a basic social coin, with awe on one side and shame on the other. The audience sense secret mysteries and powers being the performance, and the performer sense that one’s chief secrets are petty ones. As countless folk tales and initiation rites show, often the real secret behind the mystery is that there really is no mystery; the real problem is to prevent the audience from learning this too. Not only are we driven by a deep emotion to give thanks, but we also have a profound need to receive thanks when we have given ourselves in either a large or small way. When thanks is not forthcoming, we feel a kind of emptiness, a vacuum in that place of our inner being which the words or acts of thanks should fill. However, just as we feel ashamed when we use too strong an expression of gratitude, we feel uneasy when we receive it and we refuse to accept it, whether we say or not. It is always difficult to receive thanks without some resistance. The American reply, “you are welcome,” or the German reply, “please,” expresses the refusal to accept thanks without hesitation. “Do not mention it” is the simplest expression of this resistance to accept thanks, which, however, we do accept at the same time. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageThese uncertainties in the simple act of giving or receiving thanks teach us something about our relationship to others, and our predicament. In every act of giving or receiving thanks, we accept or reject someone, and we are accepted or rejected by someone. Such acceptance or rejection is not always noticed, either by ourselves or by the other. If we are sensitive, we often feel it and react with joy or sorrow, with shame or pride, and mostly with mixtures of these emotions. A simple “thank you” can be an attack or a withdrawal. It can be the expression of giving someone a place within us, or a successful way of protecting ourselves from someone’s attempt to find a place with us. A word of thanks can be a complete rejection of one whom we thank, or it can be the unlocking of one’s and our hearts. However, probably in most cases, it is a polite form of stating that one whom we thank does not really concern us very much. The fiftieth Psalm says—“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,” and “One who brings thanksgiving as one’s sacrifice honors me.” Here the original meaning of thanks shines through. Giving thanks is a sacrifice. Here the literal meaning of “thanksgiving” is felt. Thank is expressed through sacrificial acts. Valuable objects are removed from their ordinary use and given to the gods. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

ImageIt is an acknowledgement of the fact that humans did not create themselves, that nothing belongs to them, that vulnerable one was thrown into the World and vulnerable one will be thrust out of it. What one has is given to one. In the act of sacrifice one expresses one’s awareness of this destiny. One gives a part of what is given to one, but something that is ultimately not one’s own. In sacrificing thanks one witnesses to one’s finitude, to one’s trasitoriness. Every serious giving of thanks implies a sacrifice, an acknowledgment of one’s finitude. A person who is able to thank seriously accepts that one is creature, and, in acceptance, one is religious even though one denies religion. And a person who is able to accept honest thanks without embarrassment is mature. One knows one’s own finitude as well as that of the other, and one knows that the mutual sacrifices of thanks confirms that one and the other are creatures. In chapter 13, of The Book of Mormon, Nephi sees in vision the church of the devil set up among the Gentiles, the discovery and colonizing of America, the loss of many plain and precious parts of the Bible, the resultant state of gentile apostasy, the restoration of the gospel, the coming forth of latter-day scripture, and the building up of Zion. About 600-592 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

ImageRemember Thy congregation, O Lord, which Thou hast created from the beginning; forget not the Church which of old times Thou hast predestinated in Christ; be mindful of Thy mercy, look upon Thy covenant, and bless us continually with the promise of freedom. “And it came to pass that the Angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld many nations and kingdoms. And the Angel said unto me: What beholdest thou? And I said: I behold many nations and kingdoms. And he said unto me: These are the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles. And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church. And the Angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity. And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was founder of it. And I also saw gold, and silver, and silks, and scarlets, and fine-twined linen, and all manner of precious clothing; and I saw many harlots. And the Angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the gold, and the silver, and the silks, and the scarlets, and the fine-twined linen, and the precious clothing, and the harlots, are the desires of this great and abominable church. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Image“And also for the praise of the World do they destroy the saints of God, and being them down into captivity. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren. And it came to pass that the Angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of my brethren. And I looked and beheld a man among Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land. And I came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters. And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten. And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Image“And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them. And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle. And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations,” reports 1 Nephi 13.1-19. The blessed possess these three things in God; because they see Him, and in seeing Hi, possess Him as present, having the power to see Him always; and possessing Him they enjoy Him as the ultimate fulfilment of desire. God is called incomprehensible not because anything of Him is not seen; but because He is not see as perfectly as He is capable of being see; thus when any demonstrable proposition is known by probable reason only, it does not follow that any part of it is unknow, either the subject, or the predicate, or the composition; but that it is not as perfectly known as it is capable of being known. The whole is comprehended when it is seen in such a way that nothing of it is hidden from the seer, or when its boundaries can be completely viewed or traced; for the boundaries of a thing are said to be completely surveyed when the end of the knowledge of it is attained. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

ImageThe word “wholly” denotes a mode of the object; not that the whole object does not come under knowledge, but that the mode of the object is not the mode of the one who knows. Therefore one who sees God’s essence, sees in Him that He exists infinitely, and is infinitely knowable; instance, a person can have a probable opinion that a proposition is demonstrable, although one does not know it as demonstrated. The indwelling Holy Spirit, through His superior intimate knowledge, both prays for us and joins us in our praying, infusing His prayers into ours so that we pray in the Spirit. Jude 20 challenges us to cultivate and experience this wonderful Spirit-wrought phenomenon: “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” Praying in the Spirit is the will of God, and what God wills He empowers as we let Him. Two supernatural things happen here: First, the Holy Spirit tells us what we ought pray for. Apart from the Spirit’s assistance, our prayers are limited by our own reasons and intuition. However, with the Holy Spirit’s help they become informed by Heaven. As we seek the Spirit’s help, He will speak to us through His Word, which conveys His mind regarding every matter of principle. Thus, in Spirit-directed prayer we thin God’s thoughts after Him. His desires will become our desires, His motives our motives, His ends our ends. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

ImageFurther, as God shows our hearts which matter to pray for, He gives us the absolute conviction they are God’s will. The very fact hat God lays a burden of prayer on our hearts and keeps us praying is prima facie evidence that He purposes to grant the answer. When asked if he really believed that two men for whose salvation he had prayed for over fifty years would be converted, George Muller of Bristol replied, “Do you think God would have kept me praying all these years if He did not intend to say them?” Both men were converted, one shortly before, the other after Muller’s death. Such confident direction in one’s prayer life is not unusual. I had a similar conviction regarding my brother, who came to Christ after I had been praying for him for ten years! When God’s people truly pray in the Spirit, they receive similar direction and conviction, not only about people, but about events and projects and even whole nations. The second benefit or praying in the Spirit is that it supplies the energizing of the Holy Spirit for prayer, infusing tired, even infirm, bodies and elevating the depressed to pray with power and conviction for God’s work. People, learn to pray in the Spirit! To help myself to do this, I have written ‘Pray in the Spirit” at the top of my prayer list as a constant reminder to patiently wait on the Lord, asking the Spirit to give me prayers. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

ImagePrayers is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to the Word of God, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God. Let us learn to pray in-Spirited prayer using the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit. The natural desire of the rational creature is to know everything that belongs to the perfection of the intellect, namely, the species and the genera of things and their types, and these everyone who see the Divine essence will see in God. However, to know other singulars, their thoughts and their deeds does not belong to the perfection of the created intellect nor does its natural desire go out to these things; neither, again, does it desire to know things that exist not as yet, but which God can call into being. Yet if God alone were seen, Who is the Fount and principle of all being and of all truth, He would so fill the natural desire of knowledge that nothing else would be desired, and the seer would be completely beatified. Unhappy is the person who knows all these (id est all creatures) and knoweth not Thee! but happy whoso knoweth Thee although he know not these. And whoso knoweth both Thee and them is not the happier for them, but for Thee alone. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

ImageComplex personhood means that even those who haunt our dominate institutions and their systems of value are haunted too by things they sometimes have names for and sometimes do not. At the very least, complex personhood is about conferring the respect on others that comes from presuming that life and people’s lives are simultaneously straightforward and full of enormously subtle meaning. When seeking to understand justice, it is first important to begin from the simple premise, that power, personhood, and social relations are complex, contested, and often, fragile. By addressing social relations, we seek to put into focus the relationships between people and everyday life. Human nature is frequently constructed in binary terms—good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, selfish vs. self-interested—but, as theorists will argue, human nature is far more complex and dynamic than any dichotomy. We emphasize that human nature is complicated and discussion of human nature may be explicit and implicit and that human nature if one of many beginning points for deconstructing notions of justice and injustice. The means to that end are not all directly under my control, for some are the actions of God toward me and in me. However, some are directly under my control. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

ImageSovereign Commander of the Universe, I am sadly harassed by doubts, fears, unbelief, in a felt spiritual darkness. My heart is full of evil surmisings and disquietude, and I cannot act faith at all. My Heavenly pilot has disappeared, and I have lost my hold on the rock of ages; I sink in deep mire beneath storms and waves, in horror and distress unutterable. Help me, O Lord, to throw myself absolutely and wholly on Thee, for better, for worse, without comfort, and all but hopeless. Give me peace of soul, confidence, enlargement of mind, morning joy that comes after night heaviness; water my soul richly with divine blessings; grant that I may welcome Thy humbling in private so that I might enjoy Thee in public; give me a mountain top as high as the valley is low. Thy grace can melt the worst sinner, and I am as vile as he; a trophy of redeeming power; in my distress let me not forget this. All-wise God, Thy never-failing providence orders every event, sweetens every fear, reveals evil’s presence lurking in seeming good, brings real good out of seeming evil, makes unsatisfactory what I set my heart upon, to show me what a short-sighted creature I am, and to teach me to live by faith upon Thy blessed self. Out of my sorrow and night give me the name Naphtali—“satisfied with favour”—help me to love Thee as Thy child, and to walk worthy of my Heavenly pedigree. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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God Moves in a Mysterious Way, His Wonders to Perform Gives Life All its Flavour!

ImageFinding a way to live the simple life is today’s most complicated problem. In the traditional family the politics of the situation is very clear. The father’s authority is backed by religious and legal sanctions. They only way that family members can to any degree live independent lives is to do so secretly, deceiving him. In the usual present-day family, control is theoretically unified in the hands of both parents, but in practice they often disagree. This opens the way for a power struggle between family members, with temporary or permanent factions forming. Subtle strategies are used by the children to set the parents against each other. The sanctions for parental authority are no longer strong, further weakening the control structure. Consequently one of the most frequent characteristics is a continual wrangle over decisions involving control. “Why do I have to help with the dishes?” “Why can I not have the ultimate driving machine tonight?” “I want to wear my blue jeans!” “Why do I have to come home at eleven, when my friend Brady can stay out till midnight?” The children are struggling for more independence of parental authority. The parents are in the position of a weak government, alternatively being very firm and then giving in to demands. The politics of the family is very unstable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

ImageI am disappointed when I realize—and of course this realization always comes afterward, after a lag of time—that I have been too frightened or too threatened to let myself get close to what I am experiencing, and that consequently I have not been genuine or congruent. There immediately comes to mind an instance that is somewhat painful to reveal. Some years ago I was invited to be a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. The Fellows are a group of brilliant and well-informed scholars. I suppose it was inevitable that there is a considerable amount of one-upmanship, of showing off one’s knowledge and achievements. It seems important for each Fellow to impress the others, to be a little more assured, to be a little more knowledgeable than one really is. I found myself doing this same thing—playing a role of having greater certainty and greater competence than I really possess. I cannot tell you how disgusted with myself I felt as I realized what I was doing; I was not being me, I was playing a part. I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful. I have a friend whom I like very much but who has one particular pattern of behavior that thoroughly annoys me. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

ImageBecause of the usual tendency to be nice, polite, and pleasant I kept this annoyance to myself for too long and, when it finally burst it bounds, it came out not only as annoyance but as an attack on him. This was hurtful, and it took some time to repair the relationship. When I have the strength to permit another person to be one’s own realness and to be separate from me, I am inwardly pleased. I think that is often a very threatening possibility. In some ways I have found it an ultimate test of staff leadership and of parenthood. Can I freely permit this staff member or my son or daughter to become a separate person with ideas, purposes, and values which may not be identical with my own? I think of one staff member this past year who showed many flashes of brilliance but who clearly held values different from mine and behaved in ways very different from the ways in which I would behave. It was a real struggle, in which I feel I was only partially successful, to let one be oneself, to let one develop as a person entirely separate from me and my ideas and my values. Yet to the extent that I was successful, I was pleased with myself, because I think this permission to be a separate person is what makes for the autonomous development of another individual. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

 

ImageI am angry with myself when I discovered that I have been subtly controlling and molding another person in my own image. This has been a very painful part of my professional experience. I hate t have “disciples,” students who have molded themselves meticulously into the pattern that they feel I wish. Some of the responsibility I place with them, but I cannot avoid the uncomfortable probability that in unknown ways I have subtly controlled such individuals and made them into carbon copies of myself, instead of the separate professional persons they have every eight to become. From what I have been saying, I trust it is clear that when I can permit realness in myself or sense it or permit it in another, I am very satisfied. When I cannot permit it in myself or fail to permit it in another, I am very distressed. When I am able to let myself be congruent and genuine, I often help the other person. When the other person is transparently real and congruent, one often helps me. In those rare moments when a deep realness in one meets a realness in the other, a memorable “I-thou relationship,” as Martin Buber would call it, occurs. Such a deep and mutual personal encounter does not happen often, but I am convinced that unless it happens occasionally, we are not living as human beings. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

ImageGod has given us the strength, truth, love, and peace and we must share what we have received, or at least proclaim its existence. It is a compassionate obligation to share the fruits of such a rare attainment with less fortunate seekers. However, only individuals of large generous natures can recognize this obligation. The self-actualized does not ask for service from others, but only to be allowed to serve them. One does not seek to attach them to oneself, but only to God. The illuminate never achieves perfect happiness because one is well aware that others are unhappy and that they are not alien to one. When the wonderful compassion wells up with in human, one can no longer remain enthralled by the satisfactions of one’s own personal peace. The cries which come to one’s ears out of the great black night which envelops humankind tell one that all is not well with such a self-centered life. One may not turn away from them by uttering the alibi that God is in His Heaven and all is well with the World. No! One realized that one must go down into the very midst of that darkness and somehow give out something of what one has gained, offer true hope to a hopeless epoch. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

ImageIt is impossible for the materialist to perceive that we live and move and have our being in a universal Mind. However, the self-actualized, knowing this, knows also that this universal life will take care of one’s individual life to the degree that one opens oneself out to it, to the extent that one takes a large and generous view of one’s relation to all other individual lives. Amidst peaceful landscape in calm forests retreats or beside lonely seashores, where the attractions of Nature are all-powerful to one and where one could gladly spend the remainder of one’s life in solitude, a stinking phenomenon will mark itself repeatedly on memory. Again and again, faces of different people will float up and confront one. Some will be the faces f friends or people known to one but others will be the faces of strangers. All call to one to leave one’s solitude and give up one’s silence. It is not difficult to understand this occurrence. The mountain eyrie, the jungle retreat, or the forest cottage may continue to attract one powerfully, but the awakening of one’s fellow people into truth must eventually seem a worthier objective than one’s own external peace. So long as there are others acutely conscious of their spiritual need, so long must one go out among them. One does not do this by an external command but only by an internal one—the command of compassion. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

ImageOne no longer feels for oneself alone but also for others. Indeed one cannot help doing so, for the same reason that Jesus could not help proclaiming the gospel of the Israelites, even though he foreknew the end would be impalement upon the Cross. One’s service is done out of the pure joy of giving it. The self-actualized does not have to be told to help humankind in its struggles toward the light. One is a helper by nature. One’s compassion overflows and it is out of this, not out of condescension, that one works for them. However, one’s help will not necessarily take the particular forms that humanity in its unenlightened states expects from one. Actualized being or life unites dynamics with form. Everything real has a form, be it an atom, be it the human mind. That which has no form has no being. At the same time, everything real drives beyond itself. It is not satisfied with the form in which it finds itself. It urges toward a more embracing, ultimately to the all-embracing form. Everything wants to grow. It wants to increase its power of being in forms which include and conquer non-being. Metaphorically speaking, one could say that the molecule wants to become a crystal, the crystal a cell, the cell a centre of cells, the plant animal, the animal human, the human god, the weak strong, the isolated participating, the imperfect perfect, and so on! #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

ImageIn this drive of evolution, it can happen that a being, when transcending itself loses itself. It can happen that it destroys its given form without attaining a new form, thus annihilating itself. Life meets this threat by creating forms of growth. The self-transcendence of being occurs in forms which determine the process of self-transcendence. However, this determination is never complete. If it were, one could not speak of self-transcendence. One would have to speak of self-expression. The incompleteness of the laws of growth produce a risk in everything living. In transcending itself a being may fulfill and it may destroy itself. One could call this risk of creativity. Symbolically, one could say that even God, in creating, took the risk upon Himself that creation would turn into destruction. In the vision in which Parmenides receives the answer to the philosophical question, it is dike, the goddess of justice, who introduces him into the truth about being. Justice is not a social category far removed from ontological inquires, but it is a category without which no ontology is possible. In the poetic fragment of Parmenides we have an archaic ontology of justice. Heraclitus, in his words about the logos, the law which determines the movement of the kosmos, applies the concept of the logos both to the laws of nature and to the laws of the city. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

ImageAccording to Plate, justice is the uniting function in the individual person and in the social group. It is the embracing form in both cases. Their power of being depends on it. In Stoicism it is the same logos which works as physical law in nature and as a moral law in the human mind. It judges as principle of justice all absolute laws. It gave the Roman Stoics criteria for the formulation and administration of the Roman law. It was seen in its absolute, cosmic validity, whatever the consequences of its execution may be. Whenever the ontological foundation of justice was removed, and absolute interpretation of law was tried, no criteria against arbitrary tyranny or utilitarian relativism were left. In the fight of Socrates with the Sophists this was the decisive point. In the defence of the “rights of humans” against cynicism and dictatorship, the same fight is going on today. It can be won only by a new foundation of natural law and justice. A glimpse at the Old Testament shows that in spite of the unmetaphysical character of prophetic thinking, the principle of justice they pronounce governs not only Israel, but also humankind and nature. In later Judaism the law is hypostasized in the eternal realm. Only its manifestation is temporal. This implies that it is the form of being which is valid for everything in every period. Obedience to it gives power of being. Disobedience involves self-destruction. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

ImageIf justice is the form in which the power of being actualizes itself, justice must be adequate to the dynamics of power (as discussed before). It must be able to give form to the encounters of being with being. The problem of “justice in encounter” is given with the fact that it is impossible to say before the encounter happens how the power relation will be within the encounter. Many possibilities are given in every moment. Each of these possibilities demands a special form. A wrong, unjust, power relation may destroy life. In every act of justice daring is necessary and risk is unavoidable. There are no principles which could be applied mechanically and which would guarantee that justice is done. Nevertheless there are principles of justice expressing the form of being in its universal and unchanging character. Nephi makes two sets of records—each is called the plates of Nephi—the larger plates contain a secular history; the smaller ones deal primarily with sacred things. About 600-592 Before Christ. “And all these things did my father see, and hear, and speak, as he dwelt in a tent, in the valley of Lemuel, and also a great many more things, which cannot be written upon these plates. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Image“And now, as I have spoken concerning these plates, behold they are not the plates upon which I make a full account of the history of my people; for the plates upon which I have given the name of Nephi; wherefore, they are called the plates of Nephi, after mine own name; and these plates also are called the plates of Nephi. Nevertheless, I have received a commandment of the Lord that I should make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people. Upon the other plates should be engraven an account of the reign of the kings, and the wars and contentions of my people; wherefore these plates are for the more part of the ministry; and the other plates are for the more part of the reign of the kings and the wars and contentions of my people. Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not. However, the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of humans; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words. And thus it is. Amen,” report 1 Nephi 9.1-6. The angelic intellect is not defective, if defect be taken to mean privation, as if it were without anything which it ought to have. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

ImageHowever, if the defect be taken negatively, in that sense every creature is defective, when compared with God; forasmuch as it does not possess the excellence which is God. The sense of sight, as being altogether material, cannot be raised up to immateriality. However, our intellect, or the angelic intellect, inasmuch as it is elevated above matter in its own nature, can be raised up above its own nature to a higher level by grace. The proof is, that sight cannot in any way know abstractedly what it knows concretely; for in no way can it perceive a nature except as this one particular nature; whereas our intellect is able to consider abstractly what is knows concretely. Now although it knows things which have a form residing in manner, still it resolves the composite into both of these elements; and it considers the form separately by itself. Likewise, also, the intellect of an Angel, although it naturally knows the concrete in any nature, still it is able to separate that existence by its intellect; since it knows that the thing itself is one thing, and its existence is another. Since therefore the created intellect is naturally capable of apprehending the concrete form, and the concrete being abstractedly, by way of a kind of resolution of parts; it can by grace be raised up to know separate subsisting substance, and separate subsisting existence. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

ImageNow participated existence is limited by the capacity of the participator; so that God alone, who is His own existence, is pure act and infinite. However, in intellectual substances there is composition of actuality and potentiality, not, indeed, of matter and form and participated existence. Wherefore some say that they are compose of that “whereby they are” and that “which they are;” for existence itself is that by which a thing is. However, human morality and submission to God’s law are entirely different in principle, though they may appear to be similar in outward appearance. Human morality arises out of culture and family training and is based on what is proper and expected in the society we live in. It has nothing to do with God expect to thee extent that Godly people have influenced that society. Submission to God’s law arises out of a love for God and a grateful response to His grace and is based on delight in His law as revealed in Scripture. When the societal standard of morality varies from the law of God written in Scripture, we then see the true nature of human morality. We discover that it is just as hostile to the law of God as is the attitude of the most hardened sinner. Sanctification begun in our hearts by the Holy Spirit changes our attitude. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

ImageInstead of being hostile to God’s law, we begin to delight in it. “For in my inner being I delighted in God’s law,” reports Romans 7.22. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” reports Romans 8.18. This radical and dramatic change in our attitude toward God’s commands is a gift of His grace, brought about solely by the might working of His Holy Spirit within us. We play no more part in this initial act of sanctification than we do in our justification. As Paul said, “All this is from God.” When the Angel of devotion has gone, the Angel of prayer has lost its wings and it becomes a deformed and loveless thing. Our previous study was about our devotional wings (meditation, confession, adoration, and submission). Now, wings formed and stretched in flight, we come to petition, the offering of our requests to God. It is my hope this study will instruct and motivate us to a soaring life of petitionary prayer which will call down God’s power upon our lives and the Church. The Scriptural setting for the classic text on petitionary prayer could scarcely be more dramatic—it is a soldier preparing for battle. One’s heart pounds boom, boom under one’s metal breastplate. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

ImageAs one steadies oneself, one hitches up one’s armor belt and scuffs at the Earth like a football player with one’s studded boots, testing one’s traction. One repeatedly draws one’s great shield across one’s body in anticipation of the fiery barrages to come. Reflexively one reaches up and repositions one’s helmet. One gingerly tests the edge of one’s sword and slips it back into one’s scabbard. The enemy approaches. Swords pulled from their scabbards ring in chilling symphony. The warriors stand motionless, breathing in dreadful spasm. And then the believing soldier does the most astounding thing. One falls to one’s knees in deep, profound, petitionary prayer—for one has obeyed one’s divine instructions to take of all-prayer. The Holy Scriptures themselves portray this weapon: “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints,” reports Ephesians 6.18. We are charged with five elements necessary to fully experience the power of petitionary prayer. “And he who searches our hearts know the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will,” reports Romans 8.27. Then the vision and the solid intention obey Christ will naturally lead to seeking out and applying means to that end. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

ImageHere the means in question are the means for spiritual transformation, for the replacing of the inner character of the “lost” with the inner character of Jesus: His vision, understanding, feelings, decisions, and character. In finding such means we are not let to ourselves but have rich resources available to us in the example and teachings of Jesus, in the Scriptures generally, and in one’s people. Suppose, for example, we would like to be generous to those who have already take away some of our money or property through legal process. Pure will, with gritted teeth, cannot be enough to enable us to do this. By what means, then, can we become the kind of person who would do this as Jesus Himself would do it? If we have the vision and we intend (have decided) to do it, we can certainly find and implement the means, for God will help us to do so. We must start by discovering, by identifying, the thoughts, feelings, habits of will, social relations, and bodily inclinations that prevent us from being generous to these people. Our education and teachers should help us here, and perhaps they do to some extent—but nearly always insufficiently. We might with a little reflection identify resentment and anger toward the person who needs our help as a cause of not helping one. And then there is justice. Ah, justice! Perhaps in the form of “I do not owe it to him. He has no claims to me.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

ImageOr perhaps we feel the legal case that went against us and in his favor was rigged. Or again, perhaps we think we must secure ourselves by holding onto whatever surplus items we have. After all, we may say, who knows what the future holds? Or perhaps we think giving to people what is unearned by them will harm them by corrupting their character, leading them to believe one can get something for nothing. Or perhaps it is just not our habit to give people with no prior claim on us—even if they have not injured or deprived us. Or perhaps our friends, including our religious friends, would think we are fools. And so forth. What a thicket of lostness stands in the way of doing a simple good thing: helping someone in need, someone who just happens to have previously won a legal case against us, possibly quite justly. At this point it is the all-too-customary human thinking, feeling, and social practice that stands in the way. And, truthfully, it is very likely that little can be done in the moment of need to help one do the good things that Jesus commands. This is characteristic of all his example and teaching. When my neighbor who has triumphed over me in the past now stands before me in a need I can remedy, I will not be able on the spot to do the good thing if my inner being is filled with all the thoughts, feeling, and habits that characterize the ruined soul and its World.  #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

ImageRather, if I intend to obey Jesus Christ, I must intend and decide to become the kind of person who would obey. That is, I must find the means of changing my inner being until it is substantially like his, pervasively characterized by his thoughts, feelings, habits, and relationship to the Father. Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast revealed Thy glory, by Christ, among all nations, preserved the works of Thy mercy; that Thy Church, which is spread throughout the World, may preserve with stedfast faith in the confession of Thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Incomprehensible, great, and glorious God, I adore Thee and abase myself. I approach Thee mindful that I am less than nothing, a creature worse than nothing. My thoughts are not screened from Thy gaze. My secret sins blaze in the light of Thy countenance. Enable me to remember that blood which cleanseth all sin, to believe in that grace which subdues all iniquities, to resign myself to that agency which can deliver me from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Thou hast begun a good work in me and canst alone continue and complete it. Give me an increasing conviction of my tendency to err, and of my exposure to sin. Help me to feel more of the purifying, softening, influence of religion, its compassion, love, pity, courtesy, and employ me as Thy instrument in blessing others. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

ImageGive me to distinguish between the mere form of Godliness and its power, between life and a name to live, between guile and truth, between hypocrisy and a religion that will bear Thy eye. If I am not right, set me right, keep me right; and may I at last come to Thy house in peace. “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the sinful person is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God,” reports Romans 8.5-8. O God, of unchangeable power and eternal light, look favourably on Thy whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; and, by the tranquil operation of Thy perpetual Providence, carry out the work of human’s salvation; and let the whole World feel and see that tings which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and all things are returning to perfection through Him from Whom they took their origin, even through our Lord Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19Image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Pick your style when you live #MillsStation at #CresleighRanch! We offer an array of home types in eye-catching styles like Mission, #MidCenturyModern, California Modern, and Contemporary #Farmhouse. Explore all of them on our website. Link in bio. 👍 https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-2/Image

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No Dreams Put in Your Heart by God are too Big to Accomplish!

ImageIt often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong. Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it is amazing what they can accomplish. If we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can, we modern people, aim at a second naivete in and through criticism. I have come a long way and laid a lot of ink on the pulp of dead trees; it is not time to justify this expenditure of nature’s bounty, not to mention the reader’s indulgence. The only way to do this would be to show that what we know about humans tells us about the possibilities for humans, even though we have sketched a rather pathetic portrait of them. If we have really gotten at what makes people act the way they do, at basic human motives, then we have really gotten at what makes people act the way they do, at basic human motives, then we can really talk intelligently to the question that is the most intimate to our heart—what people have always yearned to know, namely, What is possible? As far as the science of humans is concerned, many thinking since the Enlightenment have believed that everything is possible for a science of society. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

ImageRousseau, Marx, Owens—the whole school of utopian socialists and still today modern revolutionaries in all continents believe that everything is possible for a science of society. All we have to do, they claim, is to change the structure of things and a new society will emerge like a splendid phoenix free of all impurity and evil, because evil lies not in the hearts of humans but in the social arrangements that people take for granted. Humans forget, how things were in the beginning, free and equal under tribalism; they grow up under the news system of kingship and the state and so they imagine that things were always this way and they accept them without complaint. Some even say it is a “sign of the times.” In other words, they are saying dysfunction and deviance is normal and we should get used to it. “And wo unto them who shall do these things away and die, for they die in their sins, and they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God; and I speak in accord to the words of Christ; and I lie not,” reports Moroni 10.26. People live abased under tyranny and self-delusion because they no longer understand the conditions of natural freedom. Revolutionaries still today trumpet this philosophy of history as the fall of pure humans into corrupt social structures. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

ImageThe reason the philosophy is so attractive is that people need hopes and ideals to urge them on—they need possibility, belief in themselves in order to even try to make things better. All truths are part-truths as far as creatures are concerned, and so there is noting wrong with an illusion that is creative. Up to a point, of course: the point at which the illusion lies about something very important, such as human nature. If it is false to that, then it becomes oppressive, because if you try falsely to make a new beginning you fail. I know that this bit of wisdom is already stale to our epoch, but even in its staleness we cannot let go of it. We still live in its shadow: the state tyranny is steady, daily, empirical reminder of the costs of ignoring the psychology of humans. Marxism in its traditional form is simply not a correct guide for a new society. However, the irony is that we simply do not know what to do with the stale truth. That is why there is such a crisis in Marxist thought, in leftist-humanist thought. What is a truly mature, sophisticated Marxism? And if we put such a thing together, where does it point on the problems of society? Does the union of Marx and Dr. Freud eclipse the Enlightenment vision for a science of society? If not, what kind of science can we imagine and work toward? These are the vital, aching questions of the contemporary scientific conscience; what kind of answers does our present knowledge suggest? #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

ImageWell, for one thing—one great thing—we now see history as it really has been in terms of overall psychodynamics. Fromm the outside a saga of tyranny, violence, coercion; from the inside, self-delusion and self-enslavement. From earliest times people asked to be mystified, and right away there were those ready to fill the role. People put on the chains imposed by the powers of dead ancestors, then shamans, priests, divine kings, heads of state. Today we understand the inner dynamics of this long history of self-abasement: people need transference in order to be able to stand life. People immunize themselves against terror by controlling their fascination, by localizing it and developing working responses toward the sources of it. The result is that one becomes a reflex of small terrors and small fascinations in place of overwhelming ones. It is a force and necessary barter: the exchange of unfreedom for life. From this point of view history is the career of a frightened animal who has to deaden oneself against life in order to live. And it is this very deadening that takes such a toll of others’ lives. All organisms want to perpetuate themselves, continue to experience and to live. It is a great mystery that we do not understand but observe every day: we are amazed, as we try to club a concerned pest, how frantically he or she wants to live. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

ImageAll animals are this frantic, without even knowing what death means; they probably only sense the danger of crushing opposing power; this is as far as the “instinct of self-preservation” takes them, out of the way of what threatens to overwhelm and engulf them. For all organism, then, opposing and obliterating power is evil—it threatens to stop experience. However, people are truly sorry creatures because they have made death conscious. They can see evil in anything that wounds them, causes ill health, or even deprives them of pleasure. Consciousness means too that they have to be preoccupied with evil even in the absence of any immediate danger; their lives comes a meditation on evil and a planned venture for controlling it and forestalling it. The result is one of the great tragedies of human existence, what we might call the need to “fetishize evil,” to locate the threat to life in some special places where it can be placated and controlled. It is tragic precisely because it is sometimes very arbitrary: people make fantasies about evil, see it in the wrong places, and destroy themselves and others by uselessly thrashing about. This is the great moral of Melville’s Moby Dick, the specific tragedy of a man driven to confine all evil to the person of a white whale. The result is that he pulls down around his shoulders the lives of almost all those he comes in contact with. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

ImageHowever, remember, God revealed Himself through Israel’s pain as the God Who is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, of history. A complete national breakdown alone made the remnants of Israel ready to receive this revelation in its universal significance. However, whenever the Jewish nation used the revelation as an excuse for national pride, and transformed God into a merely national god, another breakdown followed. For God as a national god is always condemned by God the God of history. The mystery of Judaism today lies in that fact. Our prophet describes two very great figures: Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, the World-figure of his time, called by the prophet the shepherd and the anointed, the man of God’s counsel; and the servant of God who represents the saving power of innocent suffering and death. The glorious founder of the Empire had to be the servant of the servant of God. He had to liberate the remnants of Israel, out of which the suffering servant arose. I feel that the only solution of the historical problem today lies in the prophetic concept. For there are two forces in our battered World. One is the force of those who, like the suffering servant of God, exist, unseen, in all countries. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

ImageWe do not know where these servants live, or what they will make of the future. However, we know that they exist, and that their suffering is not vain. They are the hidden tools of the God of history. They are the aged and the children, the young men and the young women, the persecuted and the imprisoned, and all those sacrificed for the sake of the future, for one small stone in the building of the Kingdom of God, the cornerstone of which is the perfect Servant of God. And the second force of the World is the force of those who, like Cyrus, rules Empires, and incorporate all the shame and greatness of Empires. They are the people of God’s counsel, because they carry through His purposes in the service of the suffering servants of God. However, they are not aware that they are instruments, as Cyrus was not aware that he was God’s man of counsel. They do not know what shall become of their deeds. And if we look to them in our attempts to grasp the future, we shall now know either; if we look to them, we shall always remain in darkness. However, if we turn to the true servants and to the true God whom they serve, the God of history, we shall know the future. We can find the solution of the riddle of history as a whole, and of our particular history, in the figure of Cyrus in the service of the servant of God. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

ImageWhensoever a person Transferreth one’s Right, or Renounceth it; it is either in consideration of some Right reciprocally transferred to oneself; or for some other good one hopeth for thereby. For it is a voluntary act: and of the voluntary acts of every person, the object is some Good To Oneself. And therefore there be some Rights, which no human can be understood by any words, or other signs to have abandoned, or transferred. As first a person cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault one by force, to take away one’s life; because one cannot be understood to aim thereby, at any Good to oneself. The same may be said of Wounds, and Chains, and Imprisonment; both because there is no benefit consequent to such patience; as there is to the patience of suffering another be wounded, or imprisoned: as also because a person cannot tell, when one seeth people proceed against one by violence, whether they intend one’s death or not. And lastly the motive, and end for which this renouncing, and transferring or Right is introduced, is nothing else but the security of a human’s person, in one’s life, and in the means of so preserving life, as not to be weary of it. And therefore if a person by words, or other signs, seem to despoil oneself of the End, for which those signs were intended; one is not to be understood as if one meant it, or that it was one’s will; but that one was ignorant of how such words and actions were to be interpreted. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

ImageThe mutual transferring of Right, is that which people call CONTRACT. There is difference, between transferring of Right to the Thing; and transferring, or tradition, that is, delivery of the Thing itself. For the Thing may be delivered together with the Translation of the Right; as in buying and selling with ready money; or exchange of goods, or lands: and it may be delivered some time after. Again, on of the Contractors, may deliver the Thing contracted for on one’s part, and leave the other to perform one’s part at some determinate time after, and in the mean time be trusted; and then the Contract on one’s part, is called PACT, or COVENANT: Or both parts may contract now, to perform hereafter: in which cases, one that is to perform in time to come, being trusted, one’s performance is called Keeping Of Promise, or  Faith; and the failing of performance (if it be voluntary) Violation Of Faith. When the transferring of Right, is not mutual; but one of the parties transferreth, in hope to gain thereby friendship, or service from another, or from one’s friends; or in hope to gain the reputation of Charity, or Magnanimity; or to deliver one’s mind from the pain of compassion; or in hope of reward in Heaven; this is not a Contract, but GIFT, FREE GIFT, GRACE: which words signify one and the same thing. “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,” reports 1 John 5.3. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

ImageOne issue believers frequently struggle with is the relationship between living by grace and obedience to God’s commands. However, nothing you ever do or do not do will make God love you any more of any less. Rather, God accepts you strictly by His grace through the merit of Jesus Christ alone. Such an unqualified statement about the love of God sounds exceedingly dangerous, leaving me open to the charge of saying in effect that God does not care whether you sin or not. But consider the alternative: “God loves you if you are obedient and does not love you if you are disobedient. Since God’s love is conditioned on obedience and you are never perfectly obedient, God never loves you perfectly of accepts you completely.” Such a bald description of the all-too-common works/merit way of thinking about our relationship with God puts the issue into focus. We are accepted by God, not only in salvation but also in our present relationship with Him, either on the merit of Jesus Christ or on the basis of our own performance. Are we to conclude, then, that since we are saved by grace and accepted by God continuously by grace He does not care whether we sin or not? To use Paul’s strong exclamation in Romans 6.2, “By no means!” Such a conclusions files in the face of all the ethical commands of the New Testament. Such a conclusion also ignores the very clear relationship that Jesus insisted on between love for Him and obedience to His commands. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

ImageOur love for God, expressed through obedience to Him, is to be a response to His love, not a means of trying to earn it. “We love because he first loved us,” reports 1 John 4.19. It is not clear whether John was saying that we love God because He firs loved us, or that we love one another because God first loved us. It really does not make any difference in this discussion because both are true. Jesus said that love for God and for one another essentially sum up all this commands (see Mathew 22.36-40). So one clear evidence that we are living by grace is a loving obedience to the commands of God. Anyone who thinks, Since God’s love is not conditioned on my obedience, I am free to live as I please, is not living by grace, nor does one understand grace. What one perceives as grace is really a caricature of grace. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey His commands. Now a command suggests two things. First, it gives clear direction. We are told what to do or not to do. We are not left in doubt as to how we are to live. The commands in the Bible provide a clear set of moral standards. One very popular philosophy today is “situation ethics,” in which actions are morally evaluated in terms of a “loving” response to the situation at hand rather than by application of moral absolutes. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

ImageSituation ethics knows no external, objective standard of behaviour. Rather, it responds to what “seems right at the moment.” The problem with this philosophy is, as Scripture says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure,” reports Jeremiah 17.9. Therefore, anything can be made to “seem right.” And because of the sinful nature still at work in us, this description of the heart is true to varying degrees even among believers. Through “Christianized” situation ethics, all kinds of sinful actions have been committed in the name of “love.” Christians have engaged in adultery—illicit pleasures of the flesh—on the pretense that they were acting in love toward a “lonely” or “hurting” person. Recently I heard of a man who allegedly conspired to have his incurably ill wife put to sleep because “she would be happier with Jesus.” This is the type of trap even Christians fall into when we do not let the commands of God give definition to love. An objective standard of love such as, “love does not commit adultery,” or “love does not murder,” should at least give people pause and certainly leaves them without excuse. God’s commands provide us this objective standard and, when obeyed, keep us from falling into situation ethics. “Do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is,” reports Ephesians 5.17. His will as used here is not His particular will for us in some issues of personal guidance; rather, it is His moral will as used, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 4.3: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

ImageWe should find out what pleases the Lord. To understand what the Lord’s will is and to find out what pleases the Lord are essentially the same; both expressions refer to the specific directions given in the ethical commands of Scripture. However, these verses are themselves commands. That is, we are commanded to know and understand the commands contained in Scripture. And quite obviously, we are to seek to know God’s will to obey it. As my first Bible study leader said many years ago, “The Bible was not given just to increase your knowledge, but to guide your conduct.” A command, however, is more than a set of directions. We have all heard the humorous statement, “When everything else fails, read the directions.” Such a statement suggests that direction are optional, that sometimes we can “muddle through,” sort of figuring out tings on our own without bothering to read the directions. Some Christians seem to think the commands of Christ are nothing more than a set of directions. If we follow them, they will helps us get through life without falling on our face and getting hurt too many times. However, the word command carries the idea of authority. The most basic meaning of the words is “to direct with authority.” A command does not just give guidance that one may accept or reject; a command implies that the one giving it has the authority to require obedience and the intention of doing so. This is true of the commands of God. As the Sovereign God of the Universe, he has the authority to require obedience and He does insist that we obey Him. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

ImageO God, Who didst mitigate the flames of fire for the Three Children; grant, we beseech Thee, that we Thy servants may not be burned by the flame of sins, through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who dwellest in the holy, and forsakes not pious hearts, deliver us from Earthly desires and carnal appetites; that no sin may reign in us, but that we may with free spirits serve Thee, our only Lord; though Jesus Christ. “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love of God with all your might, mind and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God,” reports Moroni 10.33. O Changeless God, under the conviction of thy Spirit I learn that the more I do, the worse I am, the more I know, the less I know, the more holiness I have, the more sinful I am, the more I love, the more there is to love. O wretched human that I am! O Lord, I have a wild heart, and cannot stand before thee; I am like a bird before a man. How little I love thy truth and ways! I neglect prayer, by thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly, by knowing thou hast saved my soul. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

ImageOf all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite, who sins ore safely because grace abounds, who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanseth them, who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell, for he is saved, who loves evangelical preaching, churches, Christians, but lives unholy. My mind if bucket without a bottom, with no spiritual understand, no desire for the Lord’s Day, ever learning but never reaching the truth, always at the gospel-well but never holding water. My conscience is without conviction or contrition, with nothing to repent of. My will is without power of decision or resolution. My heart is without affection, and full of leaks. My memory has no retention, so I forget easily the lessons learned, and thy truths seep away. Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace. Pour out, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the Spirit of grace upon Thy family, and cast out from them whatever evil they have incurred by the fraud of the devil or by Earthly corruption; that being cleansed within and without, they may never render unto Thee a pure worship, and may the more readily obtain what they fitly and reasonable ask; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Uncommon faith believes above and beyond and gives you a boldness and a confidence to believe for the extraordinary. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15Image

CRESLEIGH MEADOWS AT PLUMAS RANCH

Plumas Lake, CA | from the mid $300’s

Now Selling!

CaptureMission is an image of a desired state of affairs that inspires action, determines behaviour and fuels motivation.  The key to all motivations is desire, and the master key to creating desire is responsiveness to the needs, desires, and interests of the people you would lead. Cresleigh Meadows is now selling! Found just north of Feather River Boulevard, Cresleigh Meadows is home of the largest neighborhood in Plumas Ranch as well as the popular Bear River Park. With four floor plans available, ranging from approximately 2,000 – 3,500 square feet offering, three to five bedrooms, we are certain you will find the home that fits your needs and lifestyle.

ImagePopular design elements include open floor plans, large kitchen islands, and flex spaces are staples in Cresleigh homes. Multi-generational living options also available in select homes. The compassionate leader must take action. Compassion implies that you do not walk by on the road of life. When you see a wrong, you try to right it. When you see an injustice, you try to make it just. When you see a child or teenager struggling just to survive each day, you try to help them. The difference between the impossible and the possible is possessed in a human’s determination.  https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-4/Image

 

A Well-Written Life is Almost as Rare as a Well-Spent One!

(more…)

But I Never Forget Dear Your Sweet Memory—If You Really Love Me be Honest with Me!

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Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. However, if you must be without one, be without the strategy. Patience is a virtue that carries a lot of wait. Therefore, be bold in what you stand for and careful in what you fall for. The need for superiority in the case of he detached person has certain superiority in the case of the detached person has certain specific features. Abhorring competitive struggle, one does not want to excel realistically through consistent effort. One feels rather that the treasures withing one should be recognized without any effort on one’s part; one hidden greatness should be felt without one’s having to make a move. In one’s dreams, for instance, one may picture stores of treasure hidden away in some remote village which connoisseurs come from far to see. Like all notions of superiority this contains an element of reality. The hidden treasure symbolizes one’s intellectual and emotional life which one guards within the magic circle. Another way one’s sense of superiority express itself is in one’s feeling of one’s own uniqueness. This is a direct outgrowth of one’s wanting to feel separate and distinct from others. One may liken oneself to a tree standing alone on a hilltop, while the trees in the forest below are stunted by those about them. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

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Where the compliant type looks at one’s fellow humans with the silent question, “Will he or she like me?”—and the aggressive type wants to know, “How strong an adversary is he or she?” or “Can one be useful to me?”—the detached person’s first concern is, “Will he or she interfere with me?” Will one want to influence me or will one leave me alone?” The scene in which Peer Gynt meets the buttonmolder is a perfect symbolic representation of the terror the detached person feels at being thrown with others. One’s own room in hell would be all right, but to be tossed into a melting pot, to be molded or adapted to others, is a horrifying thought. One feels oneself akin to a rare Persian rug, unique in its pattern and combination of colors, forever unalterable. One takes extraordinary pride in having kept free of the leveling influences of environment and is determined to keep on doing so. In cherishing one’s unchangeableness one raises the rigidity inherent in all neuroses to the dignity of a sacred principle. Willing and even eager to elaborate one’s own pattern, to give it greater purity and lucidity, one insists that nothing extrinsic be injected. In all its simplicity and inadequacy the Peer Gynt maxim stands: “To thyself be enough.” The emotional life of the detached person does not follow as strict a patter as that of the other types detached. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

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Individual variations are greater in one’s case, chiefly because in contradistinction to the other two, whose predominant trends are directed toward beneficial goals—affection, intimacy, love in the one; survival, domination, success in the other—one’s goals are negative: one wants not to be involved, not to need anybody, not to allow others to intrude on or influence one. Hence the emotional picture would be dependent on the particular desires that have developed or been allowed to stay alive within this negative framework, and only a limited number of tendencies intrinsic to detachment as such can be formulated. There is a general tendency to suppress all feeling, even to deny its existence. I should like to quote here a passage from an unpublished novel of the poet Anna Maria Armi, because it succinctly expresses not only this tendency but also other typical attitudes of the detached person. The main character, reminiscing about one’s adolescence, says: “I could visualize a strong physical tie (as I had with my father) and a strong spiritual tie (as I had with my heroes), but I could not see where or how feeling came into it; feelings simply did not exist—people lied about that as about so many other things. B. was horrified. ‘But how do you explain sacrifice?’ she said. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

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“For a moment I was astounded by the truth in her remark; then I decided that sacrifice was just another of lies, and when it was not a lie it was either a physical or spiritual act. I dreamed at that time of living alone, of never marrying, of becoming strong and peaceful without talking too much, without asking for help. I wanted to work on myself, to be freer and freer, to give up dreams in order to see and live clearly. I thought morals had no meaning; being good or bad made no difference as long as you were absolutely true. The great sin was to look for sympathy or to expect help. Souls seemed to me temples that had to be guarded, and inside them there were always strange ceremonies going on, known only to their priests, their custodians.” The rejection of feeling pertains primarily to feelings toward other people and applies to both love and hate. It is a logical consequence of the need to keep at an emotional distance from others, in that strong love or hate, consciously experienced, would bring one either close to others or into conflict with them. The term, distance machinery, is appropriate here. It does not necessarily follow that feeling will be suppressed in areas outside human relationships and become active in the realm of books, animals, nature, art, food, and so on. However, there is considerable danger in this. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

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For a person capable of deep and passionate emotion it may be impossible to suppress only one sector of one’s feelings—and that the most crucial—without going the whole length of suppressing feeling altogether. This is speculative reasoning, but certainly the following is true. Artists of the detached type, who have demonstrated in their creative periods that they can not only feel deeply but also give expression to it, have often gone through periods, usually in adolescence, of either complete emotional numbness or of vigorous denial of all feeling—as in the passage quoted. The creative periods seem to occur when, following some disastrous attempts at close relationships, they have either deliberately or spontaneously adapted their lives to detachment—that is, when they have consciously or unconsciously determined to keep at a distance from others, or have become resigned to a kind of isolated living. The fact that now, at a safe distance from others, they can release and express a host of feelings not directly connected with human relationships permits the interpretation that early denial of all feelings was necessary to the achievement of their detachment. Another reason why the suppression of feeling may go beyond the sphere of human relationships has already been suggested in our discussion of self-sufficiency. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

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Any desire, interest, or enjoyment that might make the detached person dependent upon others is viewed as treachery from within and may be checked on that account. It is as if every situation had to be carefully tested from the standpoint of a possible loss of freedom before feeling could be allowed full play. Any threat of dependence will cause one to withdraw emotionally. However, when one finds a situation quite safe in this regard one can enjoy it to the full. Profound emotional experience is possible under these conditions. The lurking fear of either becoming too attached to a pleasure or of its infringing upon one’s freedom indirectly will sometimes make one verge on the ascetic. However, it is an asceticism of its own kind—not oriented toward self-denial or self-torture. We might rather call it a self-discipline which—accepting the premises—is not lacking in wisdom. It is of great important to physic balance that there be areas accessible to spontaneous emotional experience. Creative abilities, for instance, may be a kind of salvation. If their expression has been inhibited, and if then through analysis or some other experience it is liberated, the beneficent effect upon the detached person can be so great as to make it look like a miraculous cure. Caution is in order in evaluating such cures. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

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In the first place it would be a mistake to make any generalization about their occurrence: what may mean salvation foe a detached person will not necessarily have any such meaning for others. And even for one it is not strictly a “cure” in the sense of a radical change in neurotic fundamentals. It merely allows one a more satisfactory and less disturbed way of living. The more the emotions are checked, the more likely it is that emphasis will be placed upon intelligence. The expectation then will be that everything can be solved by sheer power of reasoning, as if mere knowledge of one’s own problems would be sufficient to cure them. Or as if reasoning alone could cure all the troubles of the World! Acceptant of the person by loving individuals as a unique being rather than as an object, the more the individual will come to perceive oneself as a person of value rather than a material object to be used. The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour. In greater matters people show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are. Nearly all people can stand adversity, but if you want to test a person’s character, give one power. The foundations of character are built not by lecture, but by bricks of good example, laid day by day. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

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In reviewing one’s own moral career, the stigmatized individual may single out and retrospectively elaborate experiences which serve for one to account for one’s coming to the beliefs and practices that one now has regarding one’s own kind and normals. A life event can thus have a double bearing on moral career, first as immediate objective grounds for an actual turning point, and later (and easier to demonstrate) as a means of accounting for a position currently taken. One experience often selected for this latter purpose is that through which the newly stigmatized individual learns that full-fledged members of the group are quite like ordinary human beings. A physically disabled man provides a statement: “If I had to choose one group of experiences that finally convinced me of the importance of this problem [of self-image] and that I had to fight my own battles of identification, it would be the incidents that made me realize with my heart that people who have physical limitations can be identified with characteristics other than their physical disability. I managed to see that people who have a physical disability could be comely, charming, well-built, masculine, neatly dressed, beautiful, ugly, lovely, stupid, brilliant—just like all other people, and I discovered that I was able to hate or love someone with a physical limitation in spite of one’s disability. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

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It may be added that in looking back to the occasion of discovering that persons with one’s stigma are human beings like everyone else, the individual may bring to bear a later occasion when one’s pre-stigma friends imputed un-humanness to those one had by then learned to see as full-fledged persons like oneself. Thus, in reviewing one’s experience as a circus worker, a young girl sees first that she had learned her fellow-workers are not freaks, and send that her pre-circus friends fear for her having to travel in a bus along with other members of the troupe. Another turning point—retrospectively if not originally—is the isolating, incapacitating experience, often a period of hospitalization, which comes later to be seen as the time when the individual was able to think through one’s problem, learn about oneself, sort out one’s situation, and arrive at a new understanding of what is important and work seeking in life. It should be added that not only are personal experiences retrospectively identified as turning points, but experiences once removed may be employed in this way. It should be added that not only are personal experiences retrospectively identified as turning points, but experiences once removed may be employed in this way. Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece—by thought, choice, courage, and determination. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

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There is nothing ambiguous about “abundance” and “superfluity,” even though there is little difference in their root meanings. “Abundance” comes to us from the Latin word una (wave), which English still retains in its basic meaning in words like “undulate” and “undulant.” Abundance, too, means an “overflowing,” yet it has acquired an altogether beneficial meaning in our language. An abundant land provides us with more than just the basic necessities. It is a land of plenty what the Old Testament describes as “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Or suppose you have been to a party where there was no scarcity of refreshments. You might say, “The wine flowed in abundance,” and you would mean something beneficial by that. There was no shortage of good things, no rationing, no need to worry about overdoing today and going without tomorrow. However, if we want to suggest the negative aspects of an “overflowing,” the word that some to mind is “superfluous.” That word, like “affluent,” goes back to the Latin verb fluere, and a superfluity is therefore a “super-flowing.” Here, however, the overflow is seen in a strictly negative light. It is pointless, wasteful. If you say to someone, “Your presence here is superfluous,” you are really saying, “Why do you not go away?” You are not saying, “How nice that you are here,” which is what you do mean, more of less, if you speak of wine being present in abundance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

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So whenever we speak of affluence, we have to ask ourselves whether we mean a beneficial, enlivening abundance or a negative, deadening superfluity. Turning now to “ennui,” we find that its basic meaning is stronger than our current definition of boredom or a feeling of dissatisfaction and weariness. Ennui and the English word “annoy” both derive from the Latin inodiare, “to make loathsome or hateful.” We might ask ourselves now, taking our clues from these words we have just examined, whether superfluity does not lead to boredom, disgust, and hatred. If so, then we should ask ourselves some hard questions about our affluent society. By “we” I mean modern industrial society as it has developed in the United States of America, Canada, and Western Europe. Do we live in affluence? Who in our society lives in affluence, and what kind of affluence is it, an affluence of abundance or an affluence of superfluity? To put the question more simply yet: Is it good affluence or bad affluence? Does affluence necessarily produce ennui? And what would a good, abundant, ebullient kind of affluence look like, and affluence that does not produce ennui? There are two possibilities, two approaches to the psychological study of the human psyche. At the moment academic psychology studies human beings primarily from the standpoint of behaviorism. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

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Behaviorism is limited exclusively to what can be directly seen and observed, to what is visible and what can therefore be measured and weighed, for whatever cannot be directly seen and observed cannot be measures or weighted either, at least not with sufficient precision. Depth psychology, the psychoanalytical method, proceeds differently. It has different goals. It does not limit its study of human actions and behavior solely to what can be seen. It inquires instead into the nature of behavior, into the motives underlying behavior. You can describe, for instance, a person’s smile. That is an action that can be photographed, that can be described in terms of the musculature of the face, and so on. However, you know very well, that there are differences among the smile of a salesgirl in a shop, the smile of someone who is antagonistic toward you but wants to hide one’s antagonism, and the smile of a friend who is happy to see you. You are able to distinguish among hundreds of kinds of smiles that take rise from different psychic states. They are all smiles, but the things they express can be Worlds apart. No machine can measure or even perceive those differences. Only a human being who is not a machine—you, for example—can do that. You observe not only with your mind but also, if I may be allowed such an old-fashioned expression, with your heart. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

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Your whole being comprehends what transpires before it. You can sense what kind of smile you are seeing. And if you cannot sense things like that, then you will be in for a lot of disappointments in your life. Or take a very different kind of behavior: the way someone eats. All right, so someone eats. However, how does one eat? One person wolfs one’s food down. Another person’s manner at table reveals that one is pedantic and attaches great importance to doing things in an orderly fashion and cleaning up one’s plate. Still another eats without haste, without greediness. One enjoys one’s food. One simply eats and takes pleasure in eating. Or take still another example. Someone bellows and turns red in the face. You conclude one is angry. Surely one is angry. However, then you take a little closer look at one and ask yourself what it is the person is feeling (perhaps you know one fairly well), and suddenly you realize that he or she is afraid. One is frightened, and one’s rage is simply a reaction to one’s own fear. And then you may look even deeper still and realize that this is a human being who feels thoroughly helpless and powerless, someone who is afraid of everything, of life itself. So you have made three observations: that one is angry, that one is afraid, and that one feels a profound sense of helplessness. All three observations are correct. However, they relate to different levels of one’s psychic structure. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

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The observation that takes on one’s sense of powerlessness is the one that registers most profoundly what is going on inside one. The observation that takes in nothing but rage is the most superficial. In other words, if you react by flying into a rage as well and see nothing but an angry person in the other individual, then you have failed to see one at all. However, if you can look being the façade of the angry person and see the frightened one, the one who feels helpless, then you will approach one differently, and it may happen that one’s anger will subside because one no longer feels threatened. From a psychoanalytical point of view, what interests us is not human behavior viewed from the outside but rather what motivates a person has, what one’s intentions are, whether one is conscious of them or not. We are interested in the quality of one’s behavior. The analyst listens with a third ear. Or, one reads between the lines. One sees not only what is offered one directly but perceives something more in what is offered and observable. One sees into the heart of the personality whose every action is merely an expression, a manifestation, yet one that is always colored by the entire personality. Every last bit of behavior is a gesture originating in one specific human individual and in no other, and that is why there are no two human actions that are identical, any more than there are two identical human beings. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

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They may resemble each other; they may be related; but they are never the same. There are no two people who raise a hand in exactly the same way, who walk the same way, who tilt their heads in the same way. That is why you can sometimes recognize a person by one’s gait even though you have not seen one’s face. A gait can be as characteristic for a person as one’s face, sometimes even more so, for it is more difficult to alter a gait than the expression of the face. We can lie with our faces. That is a capability we have that animals do not. It is more difficult to lie with one’s body, though that too can be learned. It is not that some of us become sinful because of an unfortunate childhood environment, while others are blessed with a highly moral upbringing. Rather we are all born sinners with a corrupt nature, a natural inclination to go out own way. As David wrote, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me,” reports Psalm 51.5. Here is an amazing statement from David that he was sinful while still in his mother’s womb, even during the period of pregnancy when as yet he had performed no actions, either good or bad. Because of Adam’s rebellion, we are all born with a sinful perverse nature, an inclination to go our own way. Whether it is the way of the decent individual or the way of the obvious transgressor, it makes no difference. We were all born in a state of rebellion against God. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

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The Bible says we have all sinned, and almost everyone would agree with the statement. Descriptive synonyms for sin—rebellion, despising, defying—and God takes a far more serious view of sin than the being on the street or even most Christians. Sin, in the final analysis, is rebellion against the sovereign Creator, Ruler, and Judge of the Universe. It resists the rightful prerogative of a sovereign Ruler to command obedience from His subjects. It says to an absolutely holy and righteous God that His moral laws, which are a reflection of His own nature, are not worthy of our wholehearted obedience. Sin is not only a series of actions, it is also an attitude that ignores the law of God. However, it is even more than a rebellious attitude. Sin is a state of heart, a condition of our inmost being. It is a state of corruption, of vileness, yes, even of filthiness in God’s sight. This view of sin as corrupt, vileness, and filth is symbolically when Joshua the high priest—the person holding the highest religious office in Israel is shown dressed in filthy clothes, a pictorial representation of both his sins and the sins of the people he represented as high priest. The filthiness of his garments depicts not the guilt of his sin but its pollution. Like Joshua, all of us are, in a spiritual sense, dressed in filthy clothes. We are not justly guilty before God; we are also corrupted in our natures, polluted and vile before Him. We need forgiveness and cleansing. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

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For this reason the Bible never speaks of God’s grace as simply making up our deficiencies—as if salvation consists in so much good works (even a variable amount) plus so much of God’s grace. Rather the Bible speaks of “a God who justifies the wicked,” who is found by those who do not seek Him, who reveals Himself to those who do not ask for Him, reports Romans 4.5, 10.20. However, the seeker should resolve to appeal directly by constant aspiration and prayer to one’s own higher self, in the knowledge that it alone can help one if one is to work without a teacher. On the other hand, if one’s soul has decreed that one is to have a guide, God will bring before one the mental image or intuitive thought of the Master. If this happens, one will not need to seek out the Master’s physical person; the inner picture brings results. Cicero wrote nearly two thousand years ago that the ideally perfect person is nowhere to be found at all. Who, except wishful thinkers and pious sentimentalists, can gainsay him? Those who seek absolute perfection, whether in someone else or for themselves, seek what is unattainable in this World. It is not possible to find human perfection. Travel, contact, and experience with them reveal that not one is always infallible, not one failed to commit errors of judgment. We do not just need God’s grace to make up for our deficiencies; we need His grace to provide a remedy for our guilt, a cleansing for out pollution. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

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We need God’s grace to provide a satisfaction of His justice, to cancel a debt we cannot pay. It may seem that I am belaboring the point of our guilt and vileness before God. However, we can never rightly understand God’s grace until we understand our plight as those who need His grace. The first and possibly most fundamental characteristic of divine grace is that it presupposes sin and guilt. Grace has meaning only when beings are seen as fallen, unworthy of salvation, and liable to eternal wrath. Grace does not contemplate sinners merely as undeserving but as ill-deserving. It is not simply that we do not deserve hell. The discipline of the mind is, of course, the greatest of challenges. And Scripture regularly presents its discipline as a discipline of the eyes. Humans, if you are a television-watching, fake news consuming couch bacon cheese burger with medium fries and a diet coke and a slice of cherry pie, it is impossible for you to maintain a pure mind. In one week you will watch more murders, adulteries, and perversions than our grandfathers read about in their entire lives. Things are getting so bad that people are even acting out scripts in their daily lives because they have become slaves to sin and inequity. “Can a human scoop fire into one’s lap without one’s clothes being burned?” reports Proverbs 6.27. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

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This also means treating all women with dignity—looking at them respectfully. If their dress or demeanor is distracting, look them in the eyes, and nowhere else, and get away as quickly as you can! The mind also encompasses the tongue. “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” reports Matthew 12.34. “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immortality, or any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving,” reports Ephesians 5.3. There must be no sexual humor, urbane vulgarities, and coarseness, as so many Christians are so prone to do to prove they are not “slow” or “out of it.” The human self requires rootedness in others. This is primarily an ontological matter—a matter of being what we are. It is not just a moral matter, a matter of what ought to be. And the moral aspect of it grows out of the ontological. The most fundamental “other” for the human is, of course, God himself. God is the ultimate social fact for the human being. That is why people in general think more often about God than about any other thing, even pleasures of the flesh and death. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

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However, because all are to be rooted in God—and really are, whether they want it or not—our ties to one another cannot be isolated from our shared relationship to God, nor our relationship to him from our ties to one another. Our relations to others cannot be right unless we see those others in their relation to God. Though others God comes to us and we only really find others when we see them in God. When scripture speaks of God’s arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely operative power. Hence, it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ. Appetite is the power of receiving and giving. The appetite that is in all things to receive and to give part of God’s plan. Things receive what is attractive and reject what is repugnant, and the preference of the receiver determines the action of the giver. Giving and receiving, furthermore, are motions the one motion affecting preservation and the other multiplication. Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. O God, beneath Whose eyes every heart trembles, and all consciences are afraid; be merciful to the groanings of all, and heal the wounds of all; that as not one of us is free from fault, so not one may be shut out from pardon; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh. He hath confounded mine enemies, unto the causing of them to quake before me,” reports 2 Nephi 4.21-22. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

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Almighty and merciful God, Who willest not the souls of sinners to perish, but their faults; restrain the anger which we deserve, and pour our upon us the clemency which we entreat, that through Thy mercy we may pass from mourning into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O fountain of all good, destroy in me every lofty thought, break pride to pieces and scatter it to the winds, annihilate each clinging shred of self-righteousness, implant in me true lowliness of spirit, abase me to self-loathing and self-abhorrence, open in me a fount of penitential tears, break me, then bind me up; thus will my heart be a prepared dwelling for my God; then can the Father take up his abode in me, then can the blessed Jesus come with healing in his touch, then can the Holy Spirit descend in sanctifying grace; O Holy Trinity, three Persons and one God, inhabit me, a temple consecrated to thy glory. When thou art present, evil cannot abide; in thy fellowship is fullness of joy, beneath thy smile is peace of conscience, by thy side no fears disturb, no apprehensions banish rest of mind, with thee my heart shall bloom with fragrance; make me meet, through repentance, for thine indwelling. Nothing is too great for thee to do, nothing is too good for thee to give. Infinite is thy might, boundless thy love, limitless thy grace, glorious thy saving name. Let Angels sing for sinners repenting, prodigals restored backsliders reclaimed, Satan’s captives released, blind eyes opened, broken hearts bound up, the despondent cheered, the self-righteous stripped, the formalist driven from a refuge of lies, the ignorant enlightened, and saints built up in their holy faith. I ask great things of a great God. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

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Now Selling!

NOW SELLING! Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse. Details make this modern sized Cresleigh home stand out at a glance. It is reminiscent of the Italianate style of architecture that was distinct in the 19th-century phase in the history of architecture. The captivating well-designed floor plans make it even more attractive. Notice how guests as well as family are accommodated: bathroom on first floor; gathering room, fireplace and attached formal dining room. Included is an enchanting master suite with grand bath. There are also other bedrooms, bathrooms, and a two car garage.

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Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA (Home Owner’s Association) fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/

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Come to Me and You Will Find Rest in Your Souls–I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End!

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We often worry about what we will be tomorrow, but do not take into account that we are somebody today. Life should be a place of learning suffused with excitement, engagement, passion, challenge, creativity, and joy. When we are in the minority, that is when the test of courage comes; when we are in the majority is when the test of acceptance comes. It is our destiny and the destiny of everything in the World that we must come to an end. Very end that we experience in nature and humankind speaks to us with a loud voice: you also will come to an end! It may reveal itself in the farewell to a place where we have lived for a long time, the separation from the fellowship of intimate associates, the death of someone near to us. Or it may become apparent to us in the failure of a work that gave meaning to us, the end of a whole period of life, the approach of old age, or even in the melancholy side of nature visible in autumn. All this tells us: you will also come to an end. Whenever we are shaken by this voice reminding us of our end, we ask anxiously—what does it mean that we have a beginning and an end, that we come from the darkness of the not yet, and rush ahead towards the darkness of the no more? When Augustine asked this question, he began his attempt to answer it with a prayer. And it is right to do so, because praying means elevating oneself to the eternal. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

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In fact, there is no other way of judging time than to see it in the light of the eternal. In order to judge something, one must be partly within it, partly out of it. If we were totally within time, we would not be able to elevate ourselves in prayer, meditation and thought, to the eternal. We would be children of time like all other creatures and could not ask the question of the meaning of time. However, as human beings we are aware of the eternal to which we belong and from which we are estranged by the bondage of time. We speak of time in three ways or modes—the past, present, and future. Every child is aware of them, but no wise being has ever penetrated their mystery. We become aware of them when we hear a voice telling us: you also will come to an end. It is the future that awakens us to the mystery of time. Time runs from the beginning to the end, but our awareness of times goes in the opposite direction. It starts with the anxious anticipation of the end. In the light of the future we see the past and present. So let us first consider our going into the future and towards the end that is the last point that we can anticipate in out future. The image of the future produces contrasting feelings in beings. The expectation of the future gives one a feeling of joy. We may even learn to recapture the will to laugh and the art of laughing at will. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

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It is a great thing to have a future in which one can actualize one’s possibilities, in which one can experience the abundance of life, in which one can create something new—be it new work, a new way of life, or the regeneration of one’s own being. Courageously one goes ahead towards the new, especially in the earlier part of one’s own life. However, this feeling struggles with other ones: the anxiety about what is hidden in the future, the ambiguity of everything it will bring us, the shortness of its duration that decreases with every year of our life and becomes shorter the nearer we come to the unavoidable end. And finally the end itself, with its impenetrable darkness and the threat that one’s whole existence in time will be judged as a failure. Therefore, it may be a good idea to think before one speaks, and read before one thinks. This may give one something to think about that we did not make up ourselves—a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when one is at the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions. We want to be in the pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in the pursuit of us. The goal is to fully realize the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in our souls. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

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How do beings, how do you, react to this image of the future with its hope and threat and inescapable end? Probably most of us react by looking at the immediate future, anticipating it, working for it, hoping for it, being anxious about it, while cutting off from our awareness the future which is farther away, and above all, by cutting off from our consciousness the end, the last moment of our future. Perhaps we could not live without doing so most of our time. However, perhaps we will not be able to die if we always do so. And if one is not able to die, is one really about to live? How do we react if we become aware of the inescapable end contained in our future? Are we able to bear it, to take its anxiety into a courage that faces ultimate darkness? Or are we thrown into utter hopelessness? Do we hope against hope, or do we repress our awareness of the end because we cannot stand it? Repressing the consciousness of our end expresses itself in several ways. Many try to do so by putting the expectation of a long life between now and the end. For them it is decisive that the end be delayed. Even old people who are near the end do this, for they cannot endure the fact that the end will not be delayed much longer. Many people realize this deception and hope for a continuation of this life after death. They expect an endless future in which they may achieve or possess what has been denied them in this life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
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This attitude that we will achieve our hearts desires in the after life is a prevalent attitude about the future, and also a very simple one. It denies that there is an end. It refuses to accept that we are creatures, that we come from the eternal ground of time and return to the eternal ground of time and have received a limited span of time as our time. It replaces eternity by endless future. However, endless future is without a final aim; it repeats itself and could well be described as an image of hell. This is not the Christian way of dealing with the end. The Christian message says the eternal stands above past and future. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” The Christian message acknowledges that time runs towards an end, and that we move towards the end of that time which is our time. Many people—but not the Bible—speak loosely of the “hereafter” or the “life after death.” Even in our liturgies eternity is translated by “World without end.” However, the World, by its very nature, is that which comes to an end. If we want to speak in truth without foolish, wishful thinking, we should speak about the eternal that is neither timelessness nor endless time. The mystery of the future is answered in the eternal of which we may speak in images taken from time. However, if we forget that the images are images, we fall into absurdities and self-deceptions. There is no time after time, but there is eternity above time. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

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Time is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each edge piece of a puzzle interlocks with two others to form the puzzle’s framework and give structure and support to the puzzle as a whole. Each piece has a unique design and cut that ensures just the right place to fit within the puzzle. Each morning, people from the edge pieces that interlock to create a safe environment and give support to one another and the whole. Each morning, they provide just the right place for every individual to fit safely and securely. The community members are strength and stability, and like the edge pieces, they do not stand alone in this responsibility. There are always others to support and assist, ensuring that every person has a place. The spirits temper the movements of bodily parts. Some infectious diseases are chiefly in the spirits, and not so much in the humours. We have complex and contradictory feelings toward the freedom and independence and self-determination of the individuals and countries: we desire these and are proud of the past support we have given to such tendencies, and yet we are often frightened by what they may mean. We tend to value and respect the dignity and worth of each individual, yet when we are frightened, we move away from this direction. Suppose we presented ourselves in some such fashion, openly and transparently, in our foreign relations. We would be attempting to be the nation which we truly are, in all our complexity and even contradictoriness. What would be the result? #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

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If we, as a country, were more open and transparent in our foreign relations, it seems the results would be similar to the experiences of a client when one is more truly that which he or she is. Let us look at some of the probable outcomes. We would be much more comfortable, because we would have nothing to hide. We could focus on the problem at hand, rather than spending our energies to prove that we are moral or consistent. We could use all of our creative imagination in solving the problem, rather than in defending ourselves. We could openly advance both our selfish interests, and our sympathetic concern for others, and let these conflicting desires find the balance which is acceptable to us as a people. We could freely change and grow in our leadership position, because we would not be bound by rigid concepts of what we have been, must, ought to be. We would find that we were much less feared, because others would be less inclined to suspect what lies behind the façade. We would, by our own openness, tend to bring forth openness and realism on the part of others. We would tend to work out the solutions of World problems on the basis of the real issues involved, rather than in terms of the facades being worn by the negotiating parties. In short what I am suggesting by this fantasied example is that nations and organizations might discover, as have individuals, that it is a richly rewarding experience to be what one deeply is. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

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I am suggesting that this view contains the seeds of a philosophical approach to all of life, that it is more than a trend observed in the experience of clients. Feeling rules are what guide emotion work by establishing the sense of entitlement or obligation that governs emotional exchanges. This emotion system works privately, often free of observation. It is a vital aspect of deep private bonds and also affords a way of talking about them. It is a way of describing how—as parents and children, wives and husbands, friends and lovers—we intervene in feelings in order to shape them. What are feeling rules? How do we know they exist? How do they bear on deep acting? We may address these questions by focusing on the pinch between “what I do feel” and “what I should feel,” for at this spot we get our best view of emotional convention. Now, when we take a closer look at the whole person, we find that there are six basic aspects in our lives as individual human beings—six things inseparable from every human life. These together and in interplay make up human nature. Thought (images, concepts, judgments, inferences), feeling (sensation, emotion), choice (will, decision, character), body (action, interaction with the physical World), social context (personal and structural relations to others), and soul (the factor that integrates all of the above to form one life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

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Simply put, every human being thinks (has a thought life), feels, chooses, interacts with one’s body and its social context, and (more of less) integrates all of the foregoing as parts of one life. These are the essential factors in a human being, and nothing essential to human life falls outside of them. The ideal of the spiritual life in the Christian understanding is one where all of the essential parts of the human self are effectively organized around Go, as they are restored and sustained by him. Spiritual formation in Christ is the process leading to that ideal end, and its result is love of God with all of the hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself. The human self is then fully integrated under God. The salvation or deliverance of the believer in Christ is essentially holistic or whole-life. David the psalmist, speaking of his own experience but prophetically expressing the understanding of Jesus the Messiah, said, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure,” reports Psalm 16.7-9. Note how many aspects of the self are explicitly involved in this passage: the mind, the will, the feeling, the soul, and the body. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

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A major part of understanding spiritual formation in the Christian traditions is to follow closely the way the biblical writings repeatedly and emphatically focus on the various essential dimensions of the human being and their role in life as a whole. We will draw from spiritual understanding the incentive to keep on with our quest and the courage to set higher goals. To learn from God in this total-life immersion is ow we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. The outcome is that we increasingly are able to do all things, speaking or acting, as I Christ were doing them. As apprentices of Christ we are not learning how to do some special religious activity, but how to live every moment of our live from the reality of God’s kingdom. I am learning how to live my actual life as Jesus would if He were me. No matter what my profession is, I am in full-time Christian service no less than someone who earns his or her living in a specifically religious role. Jesus stands beside me and teaches me in all I do to live in God’s World. He shows me how, in every circumstance, to reside in His word and thus be a genuine apprentice of His—His disciple indeed. This enables me to find the reality of God’s World everywhere I may be, and thereby to escape from enslavement to sin and evil. We become able to do what we know to be good and right, even when it is humanly impossible. Our lives and words become constant testimony of the reality of God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

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When, for example, an architect facing a difficult architectural job, one must know how to integrate it into the kingdom of God as much as someone attempting to win another to Christ or preparing a lesson for a congregation. Until we are clear on this, we will have missed Jesus’ connection between life and God and will automatically exclude most of our everyday lives from the domain of faith and discipleship. Jesus lived most of His life on Earth as a blue-collar worker, someone we might describe today as an independent contractor. In His vocation He practiced everything He later taught about in life in the kingdom. It is important to move away from derogatory language against others, calling them twits, jerks, or idiots, and increasingly mesh with the respect and endearment for persons that naturally flows from God’s way. This in turn transforms all of my dealings with others into tenderness and makes the usual coldness and brutality of human relations, which lays a natural foundation for unspeakable actions, simply unthinkable. Our mind and heart will keep coming back to God’s grace. The grace of God is so inexhaustible and at times overwhelming. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever more! Amen,” reports 2 Peter 3.18. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

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Growing in the grace of God allows one to become acquainted with elements of our experience which have in the past been denied to awareness as too threatening, too damaging to the structure of the self. One finds one’s experiencing these feelings fully, completely, in the relationship, so that for the moment one is one’s fear, or one’s anger, or one’s tenderness, or one’s strength. And as one lives these widely varied feelings, in all their degrees of intensity, one discovers that one has experienced oneself, that one is all these feelings. One finds that one’s behavior changing in constructive fashion in accordance with one’s newly experienced self. One approaches the realization that one no longer needs to fear what experience may hold, but can welcome it freely as a part of one’s changing and developing self. However, it seems to me that the good life is not any fixed state. It is not, in my estimation, a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana, or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted, or fulfilled, or actualized. It is not a state of drive-reduction, or tension-reduction, or homeostasis. I believe that all of these terms have been used in ways which imply that if one or several of these states is achieved, then the goal of life have been achieved. Certainly, for many people happiness, or adjustment, are seen as states of being which are synonymous with the good life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

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Social scientists have frequently spoken of the reduction of tension, or the achievement of homeostasis or equilibrium as if these states constituted the goal of the process of living. So it is with a certain amount of surprise and concern that I realize that my experience supports none of these definitions. If I focus on the experience of those individuals who seem to have evidenced the greatest degree of movement during the spiritual and therapeutic relationship, and who, in the years following this relationship, appear to have made and to be making real progress toward the good life, then it seems to me that they are not adequately described at all by any of these terms which refer to fixed states of being. I believe they would consider themselves insulted if they were described as adjusted, and they would regard it as false if they were described as happy or contented or even actualized. As I have known them I would regard it as most inaccurate to say that all their dive tensions have been reduced, or that they are in a state of homeostasis. So I am forced to ask myself whether there is any way in which I can generalize about their situation, any definition which I can give of the good life which would seem to fit the facts as I have observed them. I find this not at all easy, and what follows is stated very tentatively. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

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The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. The direction which constitutes the good life is that which is selected by the total organism, when there is psychological freedom to move in any direction. This organismically selected direction seems to have certain discernible general qualities which appear to be the same in a wide variety of unique individuals. The good life, from the point of view of my experience, is the process of movement in a direction which the human organism selects when it is inwardly free to move in any direction, and the general qualities of this selected direction appear to have a certain universality. Many people, however, seem to be morally bankrupt—completely devoid of any decent moral qualities. And it is just about the worst thing you can say about a person. A lot of people are also spiritually bankrupt. Spiritual bankruptcy is a most absolute state. It means we have nothing to give to God. Salvation is a gift from God; it is entirely by grace through faith—not by works. People living the good life are righteous and the process seems to involve an increasing openness to the experience. It is the polar opposite of defensiveness. Defensiveness is an organism’s response to experiences which are perceived or anticipated as threatening, as incongruent with the individual’s existing picture of oneself, or of oneself in relationship to the World. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

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These threatening experiences are temporarily rendered harmless by being distorted in awareness, or being denied to awareness. I quite literally cannot see, with accuracy, those experiences, feelings, reactions in myself which are significantly at variance with the picture of myself which I already possess. A large part of the process of therapy is the continuing discovery by the client that one is experiencing feelings and attitudes which heretofore one has not been able to be aware of, which one has not been able to own as being a part of oneself. If a person could be fully open to one’s experience, however, every stimulus—whether originating within the organism or in the environment—would be freely relayed through the nervous system without being distorted by any defensive mechanism. There would be no need of the mechanism of subception whereby the organism is forewarned of any experience threatening to the self. On the contrary, whether the stimulus was the impact of a configuration of form, color, or sound in the environment on the sensory nerves, or a memory trace from the past, or visceral sensation of fear or pleasure or disgust, the person would be living it, would have it completely available to awareness. Thus, one aspect of this process which I am naming the good life appears to be a movement away from the pole of defensiveness toward the pole of openness to experience. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

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The individual living the good life is becoming more able to listen to oneself, to experience what is going on within oneself. One is more open to one’s feelings of fear and discouragement and pain. One is also more open to one’s feelings of courage, and tenderness, and awe. One is free to live one’s feelings subjectively, as they exist in one, and also free to be aware of these feelings. One is more able fully to live the experiences of one’s organism rather than shutting them off. Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast made known the Incarnation of Thy Word by the testimony of a glorious star, which when the wise men be held, they adored Thy Majesty with gifts; grant that the star of Thy righteousness may always appear in our hearts, and our treasure consist in giving thanks to Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, the Enlightener of all nations, grant Thy people to enjoy perpetual peace; and pour into our hearts that radiant light which Thou didst shed into the minds of the wise men; thought Jesus Christ Our Lord. “Behold, O Lord, thou hast smitten us because of our iniquity, and hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been merciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people, and suffer not that they shall go forth across this raging deep in darkness; but behold these things which I have molten out of rock,” reports Ether 3.3. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

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There is an Abyss which No Human Can Cross, a Mystery which Remains Utterly Impenetrable to One—This is Transcendent Godhead!

ImageNo, this is something you will never do, I thought. You will not take someone so vital out of the World. You will not disturb the destiny of one who has given others so much to love and enjoy. We have to establish the logical connection between alienation and anxiety. This is extremely difficult because the discussion of the problem of anxiety has by no means reached the clarity which would make it possible for an outsider—like myself to adopt an unambiguous position toward the various opinions. Nevertheless it seems to me that the differences in the conception of the origin of anxiety do not have a decisive significance for my analysis, although they are, of course, highly relevant in other contexts. Dr. Freud himself had originally derived anxiety from the repression of libidinous impulses, and thus has seen it as an automatic transformation of instinctual energy. This view he later modified. Others claim, on the other hand, that there is a single inborn faculty for being afraid. Dr. Rank, in his famous work, derives anxiety from the trauma of birth. And a number of analysts have tried, more or less successfully, to combine the various theories in many ways. The following propositions seem to me more or less acceptable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

ImageOne must distinguish between true anxiety (Realangst) and neurotic anxiety. The difference is of considerable consequence especially for the understanding of the political importance of anxiety. The first—true anxiety—thus appears as a reaction to concrete danger situations; the second—neurotic anxiety—is produced by the ego, in order to avoid in advance even the remotest threat of danger. True anxiety is thus produced through the threat of an external object; neurotic anxiety, which may have a real basis, on the other hand is produced from within, through the ego. Since anxiety is produced by the ego, the seat of anxiety is in the ego, not in the id—the structure of instincts. However, from the analysis of the problem of psychological alienation it follows necessarily that anxiety, feelings of guilt, and the need for self-punishment are responses to internal threats to basic instinctual demands so that anxiety exists as a permanent condition. The external dangers which threaten a being meet the inner anxiety and are thus frequently experienced as even more dangerous than they really are. At the same time, these same external dangers intensify the inner anxiety. The painful tension which is evoked by the combination of inner anxiety and external danger can express itself in either two forms: in depressive or in persecutory anxiety. The differentiation is important because it helps us to evaluate the political function of anxiety more correctly. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

ImageIn the history of the individual there are certain typical dangers which produce anxiety. For the child, the withdrawal of love is of decisive importance. On this point there seems to be no doubt among psychologists. From the numerous phobias we may learn a great deal about the relation between anxiety and the renunciation of instinctual gratification. For inhibitions are a functional restraint of the ego; the ego renounces many activities in order to avoid a conflict with the id and the conscience. We know that the phobic symptoms are a substitute for gratifications of the instincts that have been denied or are unattainable. In other words, the ego creates anxiety through repression. If I have correctly reproduced the most important results of analytical theory concerning the origin of anxiety, several important consequences for the analysis of political behavior seem to follow immediately. Anxiety can play very different roles in the life of beings; that is, the activation of a state of anxiety through a danger can have a beneficial as well as destructive effect. We may perhaps distinguish three different consequences: Anxiety can play a warning role, a kind of mentor role, for beings. Affective anxiety may allow a presentiment of external dangers. Thus, anxiety also contains a protective function for it permits beings to take precaution in order to ward off the danger. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

ImageAnxiety can have a destructive effect, especially when the neurotic element is strongly present; that is, it can make being incapable of collecting themselves either to escape the danger or to fight against it; it can paralyze beings and degenerate into panicky anxiety. Finally, anxiety can have a cathartic effect; beings can be strengthened inwardly when one has successfully avoided a danger or when one has prevailed against it. One may perhaps even say (although I cannot prove this) that the being who has conquered anxiety in coming to terms with a danger, may be more capable of making decisions in freedom than the one who never had to seriously wrestle with danger. This may be an important qualification of the proposition that anxiety can make free decision impossible. Our analysis of the relation of alienation to anxiety does not yet permit us to understand the political significance of these phenomena, because it is still in the realm of individual psychology. How does it happen that masses sell their souls to leaders and follow them blindly? On what does the power of attraction of leaders over masses rest? What are the historical situations in which this identification of leader and masses is successful, and what view of history do the beings have who accept leaders? #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

ImageThus, the question concerning the essence of identification of masses and a leader stands in the center of group-psychological analysis. Without it the problem of the integration or collectivization of the individual in a mass cannot be understood. I assume that the history of the theories of group psychology is familiar. The extraordinary difficulty in the comprehension of group-psychological phenomena is possessed first of all in our own prejudices; for the experiences of the last decades have instilled in us all more or less strong prejudices against the masses, and we associate with masses the epithet mob, a group of beings who are capable of every atrocity. In fact the science group psychology began with this aristocratic prejudice in the work of the Italian, Scipio Sighele; and Le Bon’s famous book is completely in this tradition. His these are familiar. Beings in the mass descends; one is, as it were, hypnotized by the leader (operateur) and in this condition is capable of committing acts which one would never commit as an individual. As the slave of the unconscious—for instance, for Le Bon, regressive—sentiments, beings in the mass are degraded into a barbarian: “Isolated, one may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, one is a barbarian—that is a creature acting by instinct. One possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

ImageCritics of Le Bon, among them Dr. Freud, have pointed out that his theory, which rests on Sighele and Tarde, is inadequate in two aspects: the answer to the question, What hold the masses together? is inadequate, for the existence of a radical soul is unproved. In addition, in Le Bon the decisive problem—the role of the leader—hypnotist—remains unclarified. As is frequently true in social-psychological studies, the descriptions of psychological states are adequate, the theoretical analyses, the answers to “Why?,” are inadequate. From the outset, Dr. Freud sees the problem in the way which we have put it, namely, as that of the identification of masses with a leader—an identification which becomes of decisive significance particularly in an anxiety situation. And he sees in the libido the cement which holds leader and masses together, whereby, as is known, the concept of libido is to be taken in a very broad sense, to include the instinctual activities which in relations between the genders force their way toward the union in pleasures of the flesh, as well as those which in other circumstances are diverted from this aim or are prevented from reaching it, though always preserving enough of their original nature to keep their identity recognizable (as in such features as the longings for proximity, and self-sacrifice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

ImageThe cement which holds the mass together bonds them to the leader is thus a sum of instincts that are inhibited in their aims. In this manner, I believe, the logical connection between alienation and mass behavior has been established. Since the identification of masses with the leader is an alienation of the individual member, identification always constitutes a regression, and a twofold one. On the one hand, the history of a being is the history of one’s emergency from the primal horde and of one’s progressive individualization; thus the identification with a leader in a mass is a kind of a historical regression. This identification is also a substitute for a libidinal object bond, thus a psychological regression, a damaging of the ego, perhaps even the loss of the ego. However, this judgment is valid only for the libido-charged, for instance, affective, identification of an individual in a mass with a leader; and not as a matter of course (and perhaps not all) for that of lovers and of small groups. Non-affective identification too, cannot be simply considered as regressive. For identification with organizations (church, army) is not always libidinally charged. MacDougall’s emphasis on the significance of organization must therefore be taken seriously. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

ImageIt is thus necessary to make distinctions. There are non-affective identifications, in which coercion or common material interest play an essential role, either in bureaucratic-hierarchic, or in cooperative form. It seems to me to be incorrect, above all for recent history, to see in the identification of the soldier with the army, for instance, in the loyalty to an organization, an actual identification of the soldier with the commander-in-chief. Surely these are example of this: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Wallenstien, Napoleon. However, the commander-in-chief of the twenty first century is much more the technician of war than the leader of beings, and the libidinal bond of the soldier is, if I may coin the phrase, essentially cooperative, namely, with the smallest groups of comrades with whom one shares dangers. Thus I would like to establish two fundamental types of identification: a libido-charged (affective) and a libido-free (non-affective); and maintain generally (as it follows from MacDougall’s psychology) that non-affective identification with organization is less regressive than the affective identification with a leader. Non-affective loyalty is transferable; personal loyalty, on the other hand, is not. The former always contains strong rationalist elements, elements of calculability between organizations and individual, and thus prevents the total extinction of the ego. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

ImageHowever, I believe that one must also distinguish two types within affective identification. One may call them cooperative and caesaristic. It is conceivable (and it has probably happened in short periods in history) that many equals identify themselves cooperatively with one another in such a manner that their egos are merged in the collective ego. However, this cooperative form is rare, limited to short periods or in any case operative only for small groups. The decisive affective identification is that of masses with leaders. It is—as I have said—the most regressive form, for it is built upon a nearly total ego-shrinkage. It is the form which is od decisive significance for us. We call it caesaristic identiciation. Caesaristic identification may play a role in history when the situation of masses is objectively endangered, when the masses are incapable of understanding the historical process, and when the anxiety activated by the danger become neurotic persecutory (aggressive) anxiety through manipulation. From this follows, first of all, that not every situation dangerous to masses must lead to a caesartic movement; it allows, further, that not every mass movement is based on anxiety, and thus not every mass movement need be caesaristic. Thus it is a question of determining the historical conditions in which a regressive movement under a Caesar tried to win political power. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

ImageHowever, before we describe these historical situations, I may perhaps point to a clue which will frequently permit us an early diagnosis of the regressive character of such a mass movement. This clue is the view of history which the masses and the leaders employ. It may be called the conspiracy theory of history, a theory of history characterized by false concreteness. The connection between Caesarism and this view of history is quite evident. Just as the masses hope for their deliverance from distress into the World through a conspiracy. The historical process is personified in this manner. Hated, resentment, dread created by great upheavals, are concentrated on certain persons who are denounced as devilish conspirators. Nothing would be more incorrect than to characterize the enemies as scapegoats (as often happens in the literature), for they appear as genuine enemies who one must extirpate and not as substitutes whom one only needs to send into the wilderness. It is a false concreteness and therefore an especially dangerous view of history. Indeed, the danger consists in the fact that this view of history is never completely false, but always contains a kernel of truth and, indeed, must contain it, if it is to have a convincing effect. The truer it is one might say, the less regressive the movement; the falser, the more regressive. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

ImageIt is my thesis that whatever affective (for instance, caesaristic) leader-identifications occur in politics, masses and leaders have this view of history: that the distress which has befallen the masses has been brought about exclusively by a conspiracy of certain persons or groups against the people. With this view of history, true anxiety, which had been produced by war, want, hunger, anarchy, is to be transformed into neurotic anxiety and is to be overcome by means of identification with the leader-demagogue through total ego-renunciation, to the advantage of the leader and one’s clique, whose true interests do not necessarily have to correspond to those of the masses. Of course, I cannot provide conclusive proof, but I believe that by pointing to certain historical events I can make clear the connection between this view of history and Caesarism. What being will set out on a task which one can never hope to accomplish? It is too much to expect the average seeker to become a President Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr. We portray the nature of this quest not because we hold such vain expectation but because we believe in the value of right direction and in the creative power of the Ideal. The general direction of one’s thoughts and deeds—rather than those thoughts and deeds themselves—as well as the ideal one mist habitually contemplates, is what is most important and most significant in one’s life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

ImageOne first need is to choose a general goal, not necessarily an exact point but enough to orient oneself, to give one a direction. An ideal helps to hold a being back from one’s weaknesses, a standard gives one indirectly a kind of support as well as, directly, guidance. Let us not pretend to the Perfect or the hope of its attainment. However, we can have the Ideal and follow it. It is a truth which one must bring to life by one’s own personal experience. If there were no possibility of finding one’s way from this body-prisoned, time-encased condition, then no one would ever have become self-realized, and all preaching of religion and teaching of philosophy would have been futile. However, we know from history and biography that such achievement has been experienced in all parts of the World and in all centuries, so that no should give up hope. Are the quest’s goals worth what one has to pay for them? It is even worth embarking on if one remembers how few seem to reach those goals? Time alone can show one that no price is too high and that right direction is itself sufficient reward. The ultimate goal is for us to live from the Overself not from the ego. When Glenn gray went back to Europe in 1955 to interview his comrades-in-arms and his friends in the resistance of fifteen years ago, a French woman living in her comfortable bourgeois home with her husband and son, confessed earnestly: “My life is so unutterably boring nowadays! Anything is better than to have nothing at all happen day after day. You know that I do not love war or want it to return. But at least it made me feel alive, as I have no felt before or since.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

ImageRelating to the experience of listening to a German comrade-in-arms, Gray continues: Overweight, and with an expensive cigar in his mouth, he spoke of our earlier days together at the close of the way when he was shivering and hungry and harried with anxieties about keeping his wife and children from too great wants. “Sometimes I think that those were happier times for us than these.” And there was something like despair in his eyes. Neither one of these people was longing for the old day in sentimental nostalgia; they were confessing their disillusionment with a sterile present. Peace exposed a void in them that war’s excitement has enabled them to keep covered up. This void is that from which the ecstasy of violence is an escape. Some of the sterility is due to the inescapable conditions of civilized existence that remove much of the risk and challenge from life—risk and challenge that seem to be more important for many, if not most, people, than out much touted affluence. Violence puts the risk and challenge back, whatever we may think about its destructiveness; and no longer is life empty. We are going to have upheavals of violence for as long as experiences of significance are denied people. Everyone has a need for some sense of significance; and if we cannot make that possible, or even probable, in our society, then it will be obtained in destructive ways. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

ImageThe challenge before us is to find ways that people can achieve significance and recognition so that destructive violence will not be necessary. Thinking which is fact-grounded, experience-based, and correct; living which is wise, balanced, and good; prayer which goes deeper and deeper—these are some of our basic needs. Peace of mind can be enjoyed in this World: there is no need to wait for passage to the next one. Different terms can be used to label this unique attainment. It is insight, awakening, enlightenment. It is Being, Truth, Consciousness. It is Discrimination between the Seer and the Seen. It is awareness of That Which Is. It is the Practice of the Presence of God. It is the Discovery of Timelessness. All these words tell us something but they all fall short and do not tell us enough. In fact they are only hints for farther they cannot go: it is not on their level at all since it is the Touch of the Untouchable. However, nevermind; just pay with such ideas if you care too. Ruminate and move among them. Out your heart as well as head into the game. Who knows one day what may happen? Perhaps if you become still enough you too may know—as the Bible suggests. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

ImageThat life will reach some higher end and thus justify all the fret and toil is more than a comforting belief: it is also an offering of the highest Reason, the revelation of highest experience. A surgeon we know once wrote us that the goals seemed so distant, the way so long, the labour so arduous, that he felt inclined to abandon the quest altogether as something beyond ordinary human reach. Our reply to him was that because a position could not be capture in its entirety that was no reason for hesitating to make a start to capture some of it. ”And it came to pass that there was not one soul, except it were little children, who had entered the covenant (with God to keep his commandments) and had taken upon them the name of Christ,” reports Mosiah 6.2. It is a blessed historic fact that divine life and light came to the World through living beings. However, not what is more important is that it shall come to us today.  Great historic prophets, sages, and teachers were not the first discoverers of this secret consciousness, nor will they be the last. Such a circle, with its esoteric doctrines and exclusive membership, cannot be understood properly by those who stand outside it and who therefore do not know its informing spirit.  This is the wordless and pictureless discovery that insight reveals and intelligence confirms. This is the beautiful source of all life and unfailing sustainer of all beings. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15Image