Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Be bold in what you stand for and careful in what you fall for. Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. Patience is a virtue that carries a lot of wait. These ascetics are living answers to the question that nobles and intellectuals in the New World eagerly posed to their physicians: Can one achieve permanent celibacy, and if so, how? Accounts of the lives of celibates became popular. Scholars did fieldwork, living with and observing celibates in Egypt. They collected and published sayings of the fathers, which readers fell upon and cherished for their great truths. By the end of the fifth century, the New World had transplanted and modified this Old World, desert-based asceticism so that in the sixth century, monasteries also appeared there. Like their Eastern counterparts, these, too, had rules. St. Benedict’s Rule, seventy-three chapters long, made Benedict Western monasticism’s patriarch. Benedict’s ideal monastery was a single edifice with the elected abbot, whose brothers renounced all private property and swore perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience to the rules of their community. However, unlike the Eastern retreats, Benedict’s was the training ground for Christian soldiers. “We must create a scola [unit of the militia] for the Lord’s service,” he wrote. Benedict’s goal was to form a school of divine servitude in which nothing too heavy or rigorous would be established, and effectively eliminate what Westerns considered excessive Eastern asceticism. How can a actualized Christian in today’s World of secure Christendom be expected to tolerate the privations of the era of pagan persecutions? #RandolphHarris 1 of 27

Homosexuality became rampant in some permissive cloisters where celibacy was a flickering light at best, an extinguished wick at worst. Benedict’s Rule had attempted to forestall it by forbidding obvious temptations. Two actualized Christians were never to sleep in one bed. Lights were to be kept burning the night long, and the actualized Christians had to sleep fully clothed. Bathing, involving as it does the allure of the unclothed body, was discouraged and was permitted only as a complicated procedure in which concealing garments were never removed all at the same time, so that various body parts were never exposed, even to their owner, in one enticing expanse of moistly glistening flesh. A large part of the problem with celibacy is that many people in the church forgot the primacy of their religion focus. Wealth, sometime great wealth, stole into their collectivities, preoccupying and seducing them. They became major landowners with vast agricultural capacity and committed, unpaid workforce. Some celibates and their relatives from wealthier families, along with other devout Christians, willed the monasteries fortunes and more property. The holdings remained intact, protected from division between two or more legatees, as secular possession were. Abbots of these empires had to be saints—and a few were—to resist the pull of power and the lure of luxury their position offered. And once a monastery’s Old Man sacrificed spirituality and wisdom for savior faire and cynicism, his celibates’ souls went unprotected from the Devil’s best efforts. Many monasteries eventually became huge, wealthy corporations without temporal protection, so feudal nobles and kings preyed on, attacked, terrorized, dismantled, and robbed them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 27

If the monasteries were to survive, the truth was, alliances with temporal powers became essential. Perhaps they ought not to have, for in surviving by compromise rather than unenviable asceticism, they were transmogrified into travesties of what monasteries had once been. They even began to own churches, evidence of how they now accommodated to the Church, whose scrambling conformities and squabblings they had originally escaped by running away to the desert. The tortuous historical development of monasteries and the Church piloted actualized Christians away from the celibate ideal and lifestyle. Reform of the sorry and chaotic mess that was medieval monasticism led back to it. In 1073, the Benedictine monk Hildebrand became Pope Gregory VII and unleashed his own burning agenda on his extended flock: perfect celibacy for all Christians. Many laypeople celebrated and also adopted celibacy. If it was strictly for procreation, other Church’s taught that pleasures of the flesh within marriage was acceptable. Centuries after monasticism was corrupted by the riches and the slack values of the World, monasteries were again returning to the asceticism that originally assisted monks who strove to achieve both carnal and spiritual celibacy. If therefore virginity is essentially a charism (compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others), then it is a particular “manifestation of the Spirit,” because that is how a charism is defined in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 12.7). If it is a charism, then it is more a gift received from God than a gift given to God. Jesus’ words: “You have not chosen Me; on the contrary, I have chosen you,” reports John 15.16. That Scripture applies to virgins in an altogether special way. One does not choose celibacy and virginity in order to enter into the Kingdom, but because the Kingdom has entered into one. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27

In other words, one does not remain a virgin to save one’s soul more easily, but because the Kingdom, or rather the Lord, has taken possession of one, chosen one, and one feels the need to remain free to respond fully to that choice. We can already begin to see the need for a conversion in connection with virginity and celibacy. This conversion consists in moving from the attitude of someone who thinks they have given a gift or made a sacrifice, a big sacrifice, to the quite different attitude of someone who is aware of having received a gift, and a great gift, and needs most of all to give thanks. We must admit that sometimes that feeling is present in consecrated persons, at a more or less conscious level Sometimes our married brothers and sisters encouraged such a view without realizing it, by comments like: “What a sacrifice, what courage it takes to give up the chance to have your own family and live alone, to give up such a brilliant future and lock yourself up in a seminary or a convent!” And possibly we end up believing it ourselves. Whereas if our vocation is genuine we know that precisely the opposite is true and that they ought to exclaim: “How fortunate!” I believe that there is no one called to this way of following Christ who at some time—especially at the beginning, when the vocation begins to blossom—has not clearly seen, or at least glimpsed, that what they were receiving was for them the greatest grace of God, after Baptism. If virginity or celibacy is a charism, then it must be lived charismatically, and to live it charismatically means, quite simply, living it as one usually lives a gift. First of all, with humility. The great martyr Ignatius of Antioch, living very close to the apostolic era, wrote: “If a person manages to live in chastity in honour of the Lord’s flesh, let one live it with humility, because if he boasts of it, he is lost, and if he considers himself greater than a bishop he is ruined.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 27

Some Fathers, such as St. Hermon, St. Augustine and St. Bernard, even said “better an unchaste, humble person than a proud virgin.” There is a great affinity between humility and chastity, just as there is between pride and lust. Lust is carnal pride and pride is spiritual lust. Celibates and virgins are particularly exposed to the temptation of pride. They are people who have never knelt to a creature, or recognized their incompleteness and their need for another person by saying: “Give me your being, because my own is not sufficient for me!” “Man—it has been said with profound truth—is a proud being. There was no way to make him understand his neighbour, except by making that neighbour enter in to his flesh. There was no way to make him understand dependency, necessity and need, except through the law of submission to another, for no other reason than that the other exists.” The first and most radical form of submission is that of man to woman and woman to man. In a different, non-conjugal way, celibates and virgins also live this form of submission, which is so valuable for overcoming self-sufficiency, pride and independence. However, they are certainly less “conditioned” by the other gender and therefore more exposed to the spirit of pride. A visitator sent by the ecclesiastical authorities to a certain community of very austere and cultured virgins (I think it was the famous Port Royal community) had occasion to write in his report: “These women are as pure as angels, but as proud as demons.” So, the first way to live the gift of chastity is humility. The second is joy and peace, because it is written that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace,” Galatians 5.22, and if perfect chastity for the sake of the Kingdom is a “charism,” it must manifest the fruits of the Spirit. #RandolphHarris 5 of 27

Furthermore, if virginity is a charism it must be lived with freedom, because again it is written that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” reports 2 Corinthians 3.17. Interior freedom, obviously, not exterior: it means the absence of complexes, taboos, embarrassment and fear. Certainly, great harm was done to Christian virginity in the past by surrounding it with a great mass of fears, suspicions and warnings: “Be careful of this watch out for that!”, thereby turning the vocation into a kind of highway where all road signs read: Danger! Danger! This is a repetition of the mistake made by the lazy servant in the Gospel who, having received a precious talent, is afraid to lose it, so he goes off and buries it rather than making it bear fruit. We have allowed the World to think that the principle at work in it is stronger than the principle at work in us, whereas St. John tells Christians clearly: “He Who is within you is greater than the one who is in the World,” reports 1 John 4.4. At times we really have put the lamp “under the bushel” when it should be put on the lampstand to give light to all who are in the house, in other words, in the Church. We have seen that virginity for the sake of the Kingdom is both a paschal detachment from the World and a prophecy about the future life. In the past, religious men and women chose to give witness, through the colour and cut of their habits and by other signs, especially in their renunciation of the World and their separation from it.  If some new religious communities—and traditional ones, too, in some way—also showed the World the other, more important, aspect of their charism: the fact that they are an anticipation, in faith and hope, of the shining joy of the Heavenly American, when the bride will wear a robe of “fine linen, pure and bright” (Revelation 19.8), would it not be a fine and timely thing? #RandolphHarris 6 of 27

 Even if it is good to remember that the best witness to this joy is the light in one’s eyes and the unction of one’s speech, rather than the colour of one’s clothes, such witnesses, so absolute in its eloquence of a different beauty and a different hoy which do not decay, is perhaps more necessary for the World than the negative testimony which speaks of flight from the World. However, perhaps the most important result of speaking about virginity and celibacy in terms of charism is that the latent opposition between virginity and marriage, which has so beset both Christian vocations, is finally laid to rest. Virginity is a charism, and marriage is a charism too. Both are therefore particular “manifestations of the Spirit.” If both come “from the same Spirit,” how can they be incompatible or opposed to each other? In the notion of a charism, and that of vocation, which is closely related to it, the two forms of life can finally be fully reconciled and can even strengthen one another. The one conforms the other, it does not destroy it. Precisely because in the Christian view marriage is considered to be something good, and a spiritual gift, so, for that very reason, virginity and celibacy are beautiful and noble. If marriage were something bad or simply dangerous and inadvisable, indeed, what merit would there be? To abstain from it would be a duty and nothing more, like abstaining from any occasion of sin. However, precisely because marriage is good and beautiful, the renunciation of it for a higher motive is even more beautiful. A person who goes to listen to a fine concert is doing something good and wholesome, but if, even though they really wanted to go, they forgo the concert out of love—for example, so they can be close to someone they love and help them feel less lonely—it is an even better thing. In this sense Paul says that “the one who marries does well; and the one who does not marry does better still,” reports 1 Corinthians 7.38. #RandolphHarris 7 of 27

Another dimension of maintaining balance in relationships is giving up our need to be “right” all the time. We must become more willing to express ourselves, listen to others, and learn from one another, rather than always judging who is “right” and who is “wrong.” However, the World system is mostly based on right and wrong. If one admits fault, they are penalized. Therefore, people are taught to deny the truth to protect themselves and their assets. If we can learn to “agree to disagree” with one another, then love will flow freely even when there are great differences among people. One measure of the strength of love is the extent to which it, like glue, brings the most diverse elements together in a common bond. The actualizing Christian learns to relate respectfully to other people without judging them harshly or rejecting them. Love enables us to seek to understand others, and every person is worth understanding. The actualizing Christian recognized the privilege of Americans, the Old World, and other Christians to be different. Openness to others who are different replaces defensiveness; yet in one’s own core, the Christian can still radiate the presence of Christ in the World. However, the opposite of love is fear of loving. As we stressed in the past, fear can constrict one into nonliving. To be committed to the well-being of ourselves and others means cutting through fear to make a commitment, without guarantee that our love will be returned. This requires the courage to risk possibly facing some pain and disappointment, because there will be many who will not return the love or will even return disdain instead. We must have the courage to accept that we will occasionally be hurt in our attempts to truly love others. Yet, ewe can realize that the joy and fulfillment of love in our life makes it worth coping with the hurt and vulnerability that sometimes happens. #RandolphHarris 8 of 27

Here is what the Spirit of God has been saying to me for some time: There is coming a day when the people of God will even take authority over the pestilence that we know in this hour. The World will say, “Who are these that the pestilence never touch?” Some of this has already happened. I know of a family who, when they built a patio on the back of the house, said, “The mosquitoes and files are not going to keep us from using it.” They took the Word of God and marched around the backyard, quoting what the Word said about being redeemed from the pestilence. People who have been there say you can be in the backyard or on that patio and you will never be bitten by a mosquito, nor will a fly bother you. However, you better not try the front porch! That may sound silly to some, but you cannot argue with success! Learn to use your words accurately, whether in prayer or in speech. Now you do not learn to operate in this overnight, just as you do not learn to drive an Ultimate Driving Machine or fly an airplane overnight. It is a process of learning, then putting into practice what you have learned. Learn from the Word of God; then put it into practice. Practice your faith. The Word says that whatever you do will prosper (Psalm 1.3) and that no weapon formed against you shall prosper (Isaiah 54.17). Learn to use these scriptures to destroy defeat. The Word says that humans have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air. When I began to see this, I started using my confession of the Word to catch more dish. When I first learned about confession, I did not want to get in over my head, so I said, “I will just start using it in the little things.” I would advise one to do the same. Start believing God for your next parking place when you go downtown. #RandolphHarris 9 of 27

Just so, Jesus Christ’s blessed precursor, most excellent of Saints, John the Baptist—if Luke is to be believed (1.44)—somersaulted in the joy of the Holy Spirit while still enjoying the comfort of his mother’s womb. Years later as a grown man, he was able to pick Jesus out of a crowd and, according to John (3.29), speak about Him with admiration and affection. “Do not look at me! I am only the Bridegroom’s friend. He is the Bridegroom! Stop! Listen to Him! His are the words of the Joy of the joys.” So to should I stop and listen. And with great and holy desire should I be spitted and broiled and presented to You en brochette. Whence, I offer up to You all of my fellow Devouts, with their Dulce Jubilo’s, their inflamed hearts, their ecstasies, their vision. I offer also all Virtues and Lauds, from every creature in Heaven and on Earth that has been celebrated and will be celebrated. I offer them for myself and for everyone who has been commended to me for prayer. That prayer is, may You be worthily praised by everyone and glorified in every age. Accept my vows, Lord my God. You are Laudation and Benediction; You are Infinity and Immensity; You are Multitude and Magnitude—these are the sorts of things the Psalmist would say (150.2). You are all of these divine attribute and virtues, and more, and I offer them back to You, every single day, every single moment. And with prayers and affections, I invite and beseech all the Celestial Spirits and all Your faithful to thank You and to praise You, as You have come to expect. Some exclamations! May all the peoples, tribes, languages praise You! May they magnify Your Holy and Mellifluous Name with jubilation and devotion! May all of you celebrate the highest Sacrament with full reverence and receive it with full faith! #RandolphHarris 10 of 27

May they deserve to find grace and mercy in Your presence! May they pray successfully for my sinfulness! May they have the devotion they have desired, the union they have enjoyed, the consolation they have longed for, the refections they have tasted! Then may they leave the Holy and Heavenly Table. Then and only then may they remember me for my poverty. Joseph Smith and several elders left Kirtland Missouri on June 19, 1831. They traveled by wagon, canal boat, and stagecoach to Cincinnati, Ohio. Here they boarded a steam boat for St. Louis. Boat transportation between St. Louis and the western borders of Missouri was hazardous, infrequent, and very slow. Rather than wait for river transportation, for they were anxious to get to western Missouri, they walked the two hundred and fifty miles from St. Louis to Independence, arriving the middle of July. It was a joyful meeting between these men and the Saints who had been in Missouri since the beginning of the year. Shortly after his arrival, Joseph received a revelation from the Lord: This is the land of promise, and the place of the city of Zion. Behold, the place which is now called Independence, is the center place, and the spot for the temple is lying westward upon a lot which is not far from the courthouse. Wherefore it is wisdom that the land should be purchased by the Saints; and also every tract lying westward. An also every tract bordering by the prairies, inasmuch as my disciples are enabled to buy lands. Behold, this is wisdom, that they may obtain it for an everlasting inheritance. In this revelation the Lord indicated that the land of Missouri would be Zion, and that the city of Independence would be the Center place. This revelation made several assignments of responsibility to the various elders. Sidney Gilbert was to be the agent in purchasing the land, which was to be bought according to the laws of the land. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27

Sidney Gilbert was also to establish a store and sell goods honestly so he might obtain money to buy more land for the Saints. Edward Partridge was to assign the land to the Saints as they came to Zion. William Phelps was to become the church printer, and also to do printing for those of the community who wished him to do work for them. Oliver Cowdery was to assist William Phelps and help select the things to be printed for the use of the church. The bishop and his agent (Edward Partridge and Sidney Gilbert) were to make preparations for the families who were soon coming to the land of Zion. Toward the end of July about sixty people from Colesville, New York arrived. With them were Sidney Rigdon, his wife, and other elders. The settlement of Zion was now begun in earnest! The Colesville Branch settled about twelve miles west of Independence (near where the Central Church of Kansas City now stands). At that time there was no Kansas City, only a few crooked paths and several log houses scattered throughout a dense forest. Quite a ceremony was held as Colesville Branch built the first house. Twelve men carried the first log. Each man represented one of the twelve tribes of America. Sidney Rigdon, prayed, dedicating the land of Zion for the gathering of the Saints. On August 2, 1831, Sidney Rigdon stood before a meeting of the Saints and asked, “Do you receive this land for the land of your inheritance with thankful hearts from the Lord?” They all answered, “We do.” He then asked, “Do you pledge yourselves to keep the laws of God on this land?” All answered, “We do.” To his third question, “Do you pledge yourselves to keep the laws of God on this land?” All answered, “We do.” All knelt in prayer to the Lord. Then Sidney Rigdon stood up and said, “I now pronounce this land dedicated to the Lord for inheritance of the Saints in the name of Jesus Christ, and for all the faithful servants of the Lord forever. Amen.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 27

The following day eight elders met together for a special dedication service. These men were Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Peter Whitmer, Edward Partridge, William Phelps, Martin Harris, and Joseph Coe. Sidney Rigdon dedicated the ground for the city of Zion. Joseph Smith laid a stone in the name of Jesus Christ at a corner of the place where the temple they planned to build would stand. Joseph Smith, Jr., was not too happy with living conditions as he found them in Missouri. Life in Missouri was in sharp contrast to the settled, ore genteel conditions of life he had experienced in the East. This was rough pioneer country where schooling, religion, and refined manners were not considered essential; and the pioneers did not welcome the “Mormons,” as they called them, and were as uncongenial to them as the people from the east were to the Missourians. However, when the land itself, Joseph Smith was well pleased. He thought that is the Saints would bring a better grade of cattle, good grain, and farming tools, along with the will to establish and maintain schools, conditions would improve, and Missouri would indeed become the promised land of their highest hopes. The failure to sustain this glimpse is not due to one’s personal demerit but to one’s system’s limitation. For only by passing from an actualized Christian philosophy, or rather by widening it, can permanence of result be had. If it soon fades away, it is a glimpse. If one can stay in it every minute of one’s waking life, it is illumination. An intermittent enlightenment which comes like this in moments is only a step on the way. One should not be satisfied with it. Nothing short of total enlightenment which is permanent, constant, and ever-present ought to be one’s goal. The continued existence of this experience, the lengthening of this glimpse into perpetual vision, is something that cannot be brought about without patience, care, effort, guidance, and grace. #RandolphHarris 13 of 27

It is one thing to secure an enthralling glimpse, but it is another thing for this, native to Heaven and alien to Earth, to endure through the prosaic routine and belittling affairs of everyday living. The ability to maintain oneself in the high state reached during these glimpses is ordinarily lacking in a human, for it requires the whole power of one’s being. In these glimpses one only looks at the Infinite Beauty, but in the final realization one becomes unified with it. Once one has experienced the glimpse one will understand why one’s next goal is to experience it again, and why one’s final goal is to attain it in permanence. That initial realization has henceforth to be established and made one’s own under all kinds of diverse conditions and in all kinds of places. Hence one’s life may be broken up for years by a wide range of vicissitudes, pains, pleasures, test, temptations, and tribulations. If it be asked why these momentary revelations come and go all too quickly, the answer may be given by saying it is because the nature remains untransformed. Only when fully transformed can it be illuminated. Until the whole nature is transformed, it cannot hold the Light but must let it go eventually. Few can continue in the glimpse, for the lesser nature soon rises to the surface again and overwhelms them. Since there are no negative emotions in the Overself, how can it stay in the same breast as an ego filled with them? This is why the glimpse can be only a brief one, and why it can be stretched into permanency only by first cleansing the nature of al negatives. Let us value these encounters with the divine and be glad and truly grateful when they happen. They are significant and important. However, they are special events. The quest does not run through them alone. It runs just as much through ordinary daily life in which our experiences are shared in common with so many people. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27

Social and behavioural scientist have for a long time appreciated the fact that early childhood experience in the family of origin will set the stage for later adult functioning. Within certain schools of thought, the influence of early childhood experiences has, frankly, been taken too far. One can use the metaphour of the woolly mammoth to characterize the function of early childhood experiences postulated by psychoanalytic theory. Some clinicians are critical of the assumption that our interpersonal and psychological constitutions are frozen in ice, forever preserved, once our childhoods are over. It is essential to bear in mind that scientist have yet to isolate any deterministic relationships between childhood interpersonal experiences and later adult psychosocial functioning. The implications of experiences within the family of origin for later mental health must be interpreted with this caveat in mind. In it widely understood and accepted that parental neglect and abuse are precursors to numerous mental health problems, including alcoholism, depression, loneliness, personality disorders, eating disorders, somatoform disorders, and psychogenic dysfunctions involving pleasures of the flesh, to name just some. Abuse or some form of neglect (exempli gratia, low parental care) has been conclusively identified as either a contributory factor, or a phenomenon that occurs with remarkable prevalence, in the vast majority of psychological problems examined. The data that link childhood physical and sexual abuse to later adult psychosocial problems are virtually overwhelming. What are particularly impressive are both the range and severity of problems occurring in the wake of such noxious interpersonal maltreatment. One might speculate that children, even those at a very young age, understand and desire the caregiving role and behaviour of their parents. When a provider of care and support turns on a child through either neglect or more overt abuse, a corrupted interpersonal architecture is produced that in many cases will never support the construction of functional and satisfying personal relationships in the future. #RandolphHarris 15 of 27

The avoidance or alleviation of unpleasant internal states becomes a dominant goal for people who have experience childhood abuse from the perspective of emotional avoidance. Many of the psychosocial problems that follow, such as substance use disorders, bulimia nervosa, dissociation, social phobia, dysfunctions in pleasures of the flesh, and somatoform disorders, could be interpreted as a mechanism for escape or distraction from memories of such painful experiences, and perhaps a means of reducing the likelihood of further abuse. The binge eating offers an escape from self-awareness by narrowing attention to the immediate stimulus (id est, food). It is plausible to assume that many of other destructive behaviours implicated in the eating disorders, such as drug and alcohol consumption, could similarly serve as mechanisms for escape from self-awareness. Unfortunately, for many people, a sad feature of the maladjustment that follows childhood maltreatment is a propensity to be situated in interpersonal contexts in which further maltreatment is likely (exempli gratia, socializing with drug-using peers). It is a lesser-known fact that excessive parental attention and caregiving may have equally devastating consequences for later personal relationships and mental health When parents fail to maintain the delicate balance between a secure, nurturant environment and a healthy dose of reality and responsibility, the child may develop a self-image that simply cannot be sustained by future relational partners. A gross failure to develop a sense of altruism is a potential consequence. Once again, the blueprints for disaster, ultimately manifested in problems such as loneliness and personality disorders, may well be drawn before a child even leaves the home. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27

As we have seen, depression can result from marital discord, and recovery from depression is often slower for people who do not receive support from their spouse. In fact, as many as half of all depressed clients may be in a dysfunctional relationship. Thus it is not surprising that many cases of depression have been treated by couple therapy, the approach in which a therapist works with two people who share a long-term relationship. Shared responsibility—when the client’s disorders occur within the context of a troubled marriage or relations, couple therapy has proved to be an effective treatment for depression. Therapists who offer behavioural martial therapy help spouses change harmful marital behaviour by teaching them specific communication and problem-solving skills. When the depressed person’s marriage is laden with conflict, this approach and similar ones may be as effective as individual cognitive therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, or drug therapy in helping to reduce depression. In addition, depressed clients who receive couple therapy are more likely than those in individual therapy to be more satisfied with their marriages after treatment. “Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble,” reports 1 Peter 3.8. Everywhere you look these days, you can see people who are hurting. Some people are extremely discouraged; many have broken dreams. Others have made mistakes, and now their lives are in a mess. Because more people needed medication to help them through their problems, in 1962 came about the Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments: In the spirit of consumer protection, Congress passed a law requiring that all pharmaceutical drugs be proved safe and effective. The law also transferred still more authority for prescription drug ads from the Federal Trade Commission (which regulates most other kinds of advertising to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). #RandolphHarris 17 of 27

In addition to medication and therapy, often times, people need to also feel God’s compassion and His unconditional love. They do not need somebody to judge and criticize them, or to tell them what they are doing wrong. (In most cases, they already know that!) Many people need someone to bring hope, healing, and to show God’s mercy. Really, they are looking for a friend, someone who will be there to encourage them, who will take the time to listen to their story and genuinely care. We are all so busy. We have our own priorities and important plans and agendas. Often, our attitude is: I do not want to be inconvenienced. Do not bother me with your problems. I have got enough problems of my own. However, the Scripture says, “If anyone sees one’s brother (or sister) in need yet closes one’s heart of compassion, how can the love of God be in one?” reports 1 John 3.17. Interesting, is it not? God’s Word implies that we each have a heart of compassion, but the question is whether it is open or closed. Furthermore, the Holy Bible says, “We are to continually walk in love, being guided by the love and following love,” reports 2 John 6. When God puts love and compassion in your heart toward someone, He is offering you an opportunity to make a difference in that person’s life. One must learn to follow that love. Do not ignore it. Act on it. Someone needs what you have to give. God has placed in you the potential to have a kind, caring, gentle, loving spirit. One has the ability to empathize, to feel what other people are feeling. Because one was created in the image of God, one has the moral capacity to experience God’s compassion in one’s heart right now. However, too often, because of one’s own selfishness, many people choose to close their hearts to others. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27

If your heart is opened or closed, how can you tell? Easy. Are you frequently concerned about other people, or are you concerned about yourself? Do you take the time to make a difference, to encourage others, to lift their spirits, to make people feel better about themselves? Do you follow the flow of love that God puts in your heart toward someone in need? Or are you too busy with your own plans? If you want to live a successful life now, you must make sure that you keep your heart of compassion open Be on the lookout for people you can bless. If it means you can help to meet someone else’s need, please be willing to be interrupted and inconvenienced every once in a while. If you study the life of Jesus Christ, you will discover that He always took time for people. He was never too busy with His own agenda, with His own plans. He was not so caught up in Himself that He was unwilling to stop and help a person in need. He could have easily said, “Listen, I am busty. I have a schedule to keep. I am on my way to the next city, and I have already been delayed.” However, no, Jesus had compassion for people. He was concerned what they were going though, and He willingly took the time to help. He freely gave of His life. I believe He demands nothing less from those who claim to be His followers today. Many people are unhappy and are not experiencing life to its fullest because they have closed their hearts to compassion. They are motivated by only what they want and what they think they need. They rarely do anything for anybody else unless they are an ulterior motive or goal in mind. They are self-involved and self-centered. However, if you want to experience God’s abundant life, you must get your focus off yourself and start taking the time to help other people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27

Sometimes if we would just take the time to listen to people, we could help initiate a healing process in their lives. So man people today have hurt and pain bottled up deeply in their bowels. They have nobody they can talk to about mental hygiene; they do not really trust anyone anymore. If you dare to care and open your heart of compassion and be that person’s friend or sponsor—without judging or condemning—and simply have an ear to listen, you may help lift that heavy burden. You do not have to know all the right answers. You just need to care, but never let anyone drag you down. We need to learn to be better listeners. Do not always be so quick to give your opinion. Be sensitive to what the real need is in the person you hope to help. Too frequently, what we really want to do is just give them a quick word of encouragement, a semi-appropriate Scripture verse, and a fifteen-second prayer; then we can go one and do what we want to do. Instead, take the time today to hear someone with your heart, to show that person you are concerned, and that you really care. As humans evolved, there must have been a period of transition during which the carriers of the process could not have known what was happening to them or even that a change was taking place. Now in retrospect we can see it as an expansion of awareness which brought into being freedom and choice. The knowing mind begins to know itself and to perceive, along with the freedom to do this or that, a horror about which it has no freedom at all. As soon as we become able, floating down the river of life, really to see the remarkable scenery and to enjoy the newly acquired freedom to move this way or that in the current, at just that moment we hear the roar of the cataract ahead. This is the human condition. Amid the luscious fruits we see the coiled asp. We become, at one stroke, gods and food for worms. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27

Changes that come about glacially in the transformation of species are reenacted in a flash in the lives of individuals. Thus we may catch a glimpse, each in one’s own past, of that moment which recapitulates the birth of human, the beginning of that exaltation and anguish which has become for us the condition of life, the air we breathe. Human nature is invoked to prove the necessity of change, for “human nature” has been thwarted or insulted by the dominant system. “Man” can no longer be defined as what suits the dominant system, which the dominant system apparently does not always suit men or women or children. I think many social scientists have been making an error in logic. Certainly only society is the carrier of culture (it is not inborn). However, it does not follow that socialized and cultured are synonymous. What follows, rather, is that, since culture is so overwhelmingly evident in observing humankind, social properties must be of the essence of original “human nature, and indeed that the “isolated individual” is a product of culture. Many people tend to exaggerate the social nature of humanity by reading into it preformed traits of their own society. From the earliest infancy, imitation and emulation, love, striving to communicate, rivalry, exclusiveness, and jealousy, punishment, introjected authority, identification, growing up on a model, finding safety in conforming—these were among the conflicting elementary functions of “human nature” that must grow into culture. Every step of education is the resolution of a difficult social conflict. The techniques for harmoniously belongs to the organized system of society! If you use the right techniques, you can adapt people to anything. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27

Our social scientists have become so accustomed to the highly organized and by-and-large smoothly running society that they have begin to think that “social animal” means “harmoniously belonging.” They do not like to think that fighting and dissenting are proper social functions, not that rebelling or initiating fundamental change is a social function. Rather, if something does not run smoothly, they say it has been improperly socialized; there has been a failure in communication. The animal part is rarely mentioned at all; if it proves annoying, it too has been inadequately socialized. “Convulsive shudders” … “Unexpected uprising” … “wild swings” … The headline writers search frantically for terms to describe what they perceive as mounting World disorder. The democratic uprising in America stuns them. The sudden reversal of Maoist policies in China, the collapse of the dollar, the new militancy of the less affluent countries, outbreaks of rebellion in America or Afghanistan are all seen as startling, random, unconnected events. The World, we are told, is careening toward chaos. Yet mush that appears anarchic is not. The eruption of a new civilization on Earth could not but shatter old relationships, overthrow regimes, and send the financial system spiraling. What seems like chaos is actually a massive realignment of power to accommodate the new civilization. We will look back on today as the twilight of Third Wave civilization, and be saddened by what we see. For as it is coming to a close, the age of information is leaving behind a World in which one quarter of the species lives in relative affluence, three quarters in relative poverty—and 900,000,000 in what the World Bank terms “absolute poverty.” Fully 800,000,000 people are underfed and 1,100,000,000 illiterate. An estimated 550,000,000 human beings remain without access to public health facilities or even safe, drinkable water, as the age of information is ending. #RandolphHarris 22 of 27

While many Americans are still waiting for President Biden’s promised $2,000.00 a month and forgiveness of student loan debt to help get them through the pandemic, 522,808 Americans filed bankruptcy, and another variation of the COVID-19 Virus is sweeping the World, which could flatten humanity. On 22 December 2021, nearly a quarter of a million Americans were infected with COVID-19, approximately 1,900 died. America, with some of the harshest COVID-19 restrictions is leading the World in infections and deaths. As of 22 December 2021, 52,510,978 Americans have been infected with COVID-19, 833,029 have died. That means 16 percent of Americas have been infected with COVID so far. The age of information is leaving behind a World population 8 BILLION human beings, when it was reported that the World was considered overpopulated at 5 billion. In addition, the World is being left with some 20 to 30 developing nations depending on the hidden subsidies of cheap energy and cheap raw materials for their economic success. A global infrastructure—the International Monetary Fund, GATT, the World Bank, and COMECON—which regulate trade and finance for the benefit of the Third Wave powers are in control. Many poor countries are being left with one-crop economies twisted to serve the needs of the rich. The rapid emergence of the Fourth Wave is not only foreshadowing the end of the Third Wave imperium, it also is exploding all over our conventional ideas about ending poverty on the planet. Once the populace is legitimately assembled as a sovereign body, all jurisdiction of the government ceases; the executive power is suspended, and the person of the humblest citizen is as scared and inviolable as that of the first magistrate, for where those who are represented are found, there is no longer any representative. #RandolphHarris 23 of 27

Americans need financial help and they need it now! Mr. Biden is not keeping his promises! He cheated to get in office and lied to quail the people. Under the leadership of Mr. Biden, due to ignorance or neglect of the United States Constitution, all jurisdiction has been suspended and the World is back to being the Wild, Wild West. This interval of suspension, during which the president recognizes or ought to recognize an actual superior (the people), is disturbing to him. And these assemblies of the people, which are the aegis of the body politic and the curb on the government, have at all times been the horror of leaders. Thus they never spare efforts, objections, difficulties, or promises to keep the citizens from having them. When the citizens were greedy, cowardly, and pusillanimous, more enamoured of repose than with liberty, they did not hold out very long against the redoubled efforts of the government. Thus it is that, as the resisting force constantly grows, the sovereign authority finally vanishes, and the majority of the cities fall and perish prematurely. However, between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government, there sometimes is introduced an intermediate power about which we must speak. Although war itself is full of horrors it must not be forgotten that it has an obverse side. In some ways it acts like the old-fashioned surgical operation of blood-letting. All the moral scum in humanity’s character rises to the surface, concentrated mostly amongst the totalitarian gangsters, but it rises only that it may be seen for what it is and cleared off. The sufferings of humankind have an educative vale and tend to adjust the sins and excesses of humankind. It is the ultimate tendency of evil forces to destroy themselves from within as well as to suffer destruction from without through the mysterious operation of Universal law. Materialism reaches its final culmination in the social and personal crises generated by war. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27

By displaying its own horrible results before humanity’s very eyes, it is, by reaction, awakening many sleeping mentalities to the need of a spiritual outlook. In a World which has the conflict of opposites as part of its inherent nature, peace is an illusory goal. Nor in reality is there even such a thing as neutrality and nonalignment. If brute force really ruled this World then the Romans would still be ruling the Britons, and the Huns who sacked Rome would still be ruling that beautiful city. The Persian troops would still be masters of Egypt and Alexander’s troops would still be the masters of Persians. The Crusades would be proselytizing Muslims in the Middle East by force and guarding the Southern American Boarder. However, brute force is a success only in the beginning and a failure always in the end. It is true that some wars seem to have achieved a creative result, but how much more painlessly, bloodlessly, could not the same result have been achieved by nonviolent methods. It might have required a longer time, more patience, but the cruelty and horror and loss of war would have been avoided. We may watch the democratic nations trying to prevent open conflict with the totalitarian ones, but all they are succeeding in doing is merely to put off the inevitable clash from one year to another, as violence erupts on their own streets in protest to democratic nations becoming totalitarian and totalitarian nations complaining about their conflict disorder spreading to other lands like a pandemic. This conflict cannot be hidden by the American fake news and puppet leaders because it is a bathe of good and evil and there must be conflict. The evil ever seeks to destroy the good, and the good must defend itself ever. It could not happen otherwise. #Randolphharris 25 of 27

Dear Lord in Heaven, please forgive your children for the times they have missed opportunities to show compassion to someone You brought into their lives. Please help your human family to be sensitive to Your voice speaking within them, directing them how they can best help someone else. Thou hast endowed us with a knowledge of Thy Torah and hast taught us to perform the statues of Thy will. Thou hast mase distinction, O Lord our God, between the sacred and the secular, between the Godly and the morbid, between American and the heathens, between the seventh day of rest and the six days of work. O our Father, our King, please grant that the days which are approaching may begin for us in peace. May we be withheld from all sin, cleansed for all iniquity, and may we cleave in reverence to Thee. O Lord, how lovely it is to be your guest. Breeze full of scents; mountains reaching to the skies; waters like a boundless mirror, reflecting the sun’s golden rays and the scudding clouds all nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing depths of tenderness. Birds and beasts of the forest bear the imprint of your love. Blessed are you, mother Earth, in your floating loveliness, which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last forever in the land where, amid beauty that grows not old, rings out the cry: Alleluia! What sort of praises can I give you? I have never heard the song of the cherubim, a joy reserved for the spirits above but I know the praises that nature sings to you. In winter, I have beheld how silently in the moonlight the whole Earth offers you prayer, clad in its white mantle of snow, sparkling like diamonds. I have seen how the rising sun rejoices in you, how the song of the birds is a chorus of praise to you. I have heard the mysterious mutterings of the forests about you, and the winds singing your praise as they stir the waters. I have understood how the choirs of the stars proclaim your glory as they move for ever in the depths of infinite space. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27

As if an enchanted paradise, dear Lord in Heaven, you have brought me into life. We have seen the sky like a chalice of deepest blue, where in the height the birds are singing. We have listened to the soothing murmur of the forests and the melodious music of the streams. We have tasted fruit of fine flavour and sweet-scented honey. We can live very well on your Earth. It is a pleasure to be your guest. Glory to you for the feast-day of life. Glory to you for the perfume of lilies and roses. Glory to you for each different taste of berry and fruit. Glory to you for the sparkling silver of early morning dew. Glory to you for the joy of dawn’s awakening. Glory to you for the new life each day brings. Glory to you O God, for age to age. O grant us knowledge, understanding and secernment. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who bestowest knowledge upon humans. Please bring us back, O our Father, to Thy Torah; please draw us near, O our King, to Thy service, and restore us unto Thy presence in wholehearted repentance. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who desirest repentance. Please forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; please pardon us O our King, for we have transgressed. Verily Thou art merciful and forgiving. Blessed art Thou, O gracious Lord, who are abundant in forgiveness. Please behold our affliction and plead our cause. Please hasten to redeem us for the sake of Thy name, for Thou art a mighty Redeemer. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Redeemer of America. Please heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed; please save us and we shall be saved, for to Thee we offer praise. Grant complete healing for all our ailments for Thou, O God, art our King, our faithful and merciful Healer. Praised art Thou, O Lord, who healest the sick among Thy people America. Blessed this year unto us, O Lord our God, and bless its yield that it may be for our welfare. Please send Thy blessing upon the Earth. Send dew and rain for a blessing upon the earth. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27

Cresleigh Homes

Ready for the holidays? We are so excited to welcome guests into our home this year…the Brighton Station Residence 2 has a spacious, open floorplan that’s perfect for entertaining!

So glad we’re settled in our #CresleighRanch home this year!

A little bit of glamour, a charm that’s cute and quaint; this could be paradise. Welcome to Cresleigh Homes!

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