Slaves Lose Everything in their Chains, Even the Desire of Escaping from them!

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Our chief want is discovering God, getting to know our soul, and allowing these divine elements to inspire us be greater than we ever knew was possible. How mysterious a baby is, its personality still largely potential, and how helpless. Yet how powerfully it reaches out to us and touches the heart—for sustenance and for the relief of its distresses, but also for recognition. A baby seems to reach out for validation and confirmation that it is already a person. And we respond. We respond and recognize and validate. Fear, pain, loss, and hate may be part of a baby’s everyday experiences. How can it manage such feelings, helpless as it is? It cannot—that is what the adults are for. The fortunate infant has adults whose care goes beyond managing its appetites and distresses. Such a baby will still be subject to misery and terror—we all are—but it will meet them in a context of love and acceptance. Its pains and rages will be surrounded, contained, and modified by memories of joy and bliss, and by expectations of more happiness to come. Indeed, I shall argue that memories of bliss are converted into expectations of bliss, as also, alas, memories of distress turn into expectations of more grief. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Good memories give a baby a better chance of continuing to feel appealing and acceptable in all circumstances, in sorrow as well as joy, when it is bad as well as when it is good. The infant is helpless. It is the adult who mainly provides the context of its experiences. For a context within which the infant can hold on to its experiences and not be devastated by them when they are bad, the infant needs adults who, consciously or unconsciously, understand how the baby feels. Adults who recognize the depths of their baby’s feelings, good and bad, give solidity to that baby’s experience of its. Such recognition helps consolidate the baby’s integrity and sense of self: its identity. Joyous recognition will encourage a joyous identity. I shall be suggesting that there is a strong connection between the way adults see a child, and behave toward it, and the child’s identity (that is the way the child sees itself and feels about itself), and the basic structures of its personality. The very structures of the personality are determined by early experiences. Differences between adults, differences in the nature of our feelings, and in our need for others, and in our relationships with others, have roots in the different ways in which our minds are structured. If the mind is a structure, what is it a structure of? #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

I shall argue that there is more than one good way of being an integrated person with a unique identity, self-image, and personality-structure. For instance, we often tend, in our culture, to think of ourselves as rather like a computer or a BMW M760Li Ultimate Driving Machine, or a calculate something, or take us somewhere. In this phantasy we may include a driver to keep the motor car moving towards our objective, or we may think of our machine as self-starting and self-motivated but, essentially, we assume that there is a point in being what we are an that we should be organized around that point. However, as far as some of us are concerned, our experience of ourselves may be much more like a landscape, a stormy and volcanic one or a quiet one with hills, hedges, meadows, rivers, roads, and settlements—many varied features in specific relationships with one another, and integrated, but not organized in any obvious purposeful way. Our love and recognition of a child may also lean more to one or other of these models. Is the child a BMW M5 Ultimate Driving Machine to us or a landscape? The child’s experience of itself—its self-image and indeed the very structure of its personality—will be affected accordingly (though not necessarily in ways we intend). In all these processes and influences, words are unimportant. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

What happens between adult and infant is no primarily conversational or intellectual apprehensions. If we needed words to appreciate a landscape, how poor we would be! And how hard it is to put our appreciation into words. The non-verbal nature of infant experience is similarly hard to apprehend and put into words. This makes it easy to neglect the non-verbal elements from which our personality is built up. In order to carry conviction when writing of our non-verbal life, I have had to lay some solid foundations. In the fascinating area of neurophysiology, we can find the elements which will eventually combine into the more recognizable psychological structures which we call thoughts, words, feelings, images, symbols, emotions, motives. Each of these is a structure of more basic elements. Infants are essentially disabled because by being born into a World which its neurophysiology cannot cope with. However, the human infant is, relatively speaking, quite sophisticated and complex by the time it experiences itself as separate from others. How are we to think of the human experience? What are its basic units? What is an integrated person? What is it that integrates? How are we to describe the differences between the integrity of a BMW Ultimate Driving Machine and the integrity of a landscape? What does it means to be an individual? When is differentiation mere lack of integration and when is it accurate and useful individuation? #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Once this is clarified, our focus can finally come to rest on recognizable adult experiences, albeit on those adult experiences, albeit on those adult experiences in which the effects of our childhood are very apparent. Whether we are structured more like motor cars or more like landscapes, we are composed of discernibly different parts or aspects. How can these become integrated into a more or less unified composition? And how can we conceptualize the relationships between them which would integrate them in this way? The concept of “networks” brings us very nearly to a complete answer. Networks may be organized with a centre to them, or without a centre, or with more than one centre. So may we. Networks may operate simultaneously at different levels of complexity. Networks of nerve-cells are shown to build up into organizations of great complexity and power. As far as we know, without processes in there are no psychological processes. This suggest that we should, if we can, try to theorize in conformity with what is thought to be characteristic of the human nervous system; this should set some limits to our speculations on how the mind works. To start with, we need to agree some brief definitions of basic words. The nervous system is made up of nerve-cells often called neurons. A nerve-cell has various parts to it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The nerve-cell body contains the nucleus and much else that provides for the life-process of the cell. The axon is the part of the cell which divides and branches into dendrites. “Dendron” is the Greek word for tree, and the dendrites look like tiny branching trees. At the end of each of the twigs is a little knob called the terminal button or synaptic knob. Nerve-cells converse with one another; the dendrites (and sometimes points on the skin of the cell body) receive these neural messages. The axon carries the messages from the nerve-ell to nerve-cell pass across a synapse, which joins the terminal buttons of the transmitting ell to points on the cell body or to the dendrites of the receiving cell. Messages are electrical in nature but they are not carried along the cells in the way a message travels down a telephone wire. They are transmitted by means of complex changes in the skin of the axon, which results in exchanges of carious chemicals constituents of the fluids inside and outside the axon. These exchanges produce alterations in electrical currents, and it is these which excite the cells into transmitting messages down the line. The terminal buttons of the axon have the special function, when a message is passed down the axon, of secreting a chemical—the transmitter substance. There are various transmitter substances, used by different kinds of nerve cells, some excitatory some inhibitory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Transmitter substances are picked up by the receiving cell and produce effects there, either to excite or to inhibit transmission. These effects will play a part in determining whether messages will be sent on further down the line. Neurons can connect with other neurons in long chains or in more sophisticated ways. This allows quite complex experiences to come to be organized, through the simultaneous transmission of separate messages which get combined somewhere along the lone. So Turkish Delight can come to smell, look, feel, and taste delicious (at least to those of us who like it) all at the same time. Interlinked messages produce a sorting or coding or editing of stimuli. To begin with what is perhaps its most elementary function, the idealized image substitutes for realistic self-confidence and realistic pride. A person who eventually becomes neurotic has little chance to build up initial self-confidence because of the crushing experiences one has been subjected to. Such self-confidence as one may have is further weakened in the course of one’s neurotic development because they very conditions indispensable for self-confidence are apt to be destroyed. It is difficult to formulate these conditions briefly. The most important factors are the aliveness and availability of one’s emotional energies, the development of authentic goals of one’s own, and the faculty of being an active instrument in one’s own life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

However, a neurosis develops, just these things are liable to be damaged. Neurotic trends impair self-determination because a person is then driven instead f being oneself the driver. Moreover, the neurotic’s capacity to determine one’s own paths is continually weakened by one’s dependence upon people, whatever form this may have assumed—blind rebellion, blind craving to excel, and a blind need to keep away from others are all forms of dependence. Further, by inhibiting great sectors of emotional energy, one puts them completely out of action. All of these factors make it nearly impossible for one to develop one’s own goals. Last but not least, the basic conflict makes one divided in one’s own house. Being thus deprived of a substantial foundation, the neurotic must inflate one’s feeling of significance and power. That is why a belief in one’s omnipotence is a never-failing component of the idealized image. A second function is closely linked with the first. The neurotic does not feel weak in a vacuum but in a World peopled with enemies ready to cheat, humiliate, enslaved, and defeat one. One must therefore constantly measure and compared oneself with others, not for reasons of vanity or caprice but by bitter necessity. And since at the bottom one feels weak and contemptible—as we shall see later on—one must search for something that will make one feel better, more worthy than others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Whether it takes the form of feeling more saintly or more ruthless, more loving or more cynical, one must in one’s own mind feel superior in some way—regardless of any particular drive to excel. For the most part such a need contains elements of wanting to triumph over others, because no matter what the structure of the neurosis there is always vulnerability and a readiness to feel looked down on and humiliated. The need for vindictive triumph as an antidote to feeling humiliated may be acted upon or may exist mainly in the neurotic’s own mind; it may be conscious or unconscious, but it is one of the driving forces in the neurotic need for superiority and gives it its special colouring. The competitive spirit of this civilization is not only conducive to fostering neuroses in general, through the disturbance in human relationships it creates, but it also specifically feeds this need for pre-eminence. Laboratory experiments have tended mainly to use examples from the visual and cognitive side of human experience (and from the behavioural side or animal experience), yet messages about feelings are also continually coming in, and form an element of many experiences. It is therefore worth looking in a little more detail at the neurophysiology of emotional experience. In some respects, feelings are registered just like sights, sounds, and smells. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

What are commonly called the senses—vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and so on—depend on specialized sensory nerve-cells, often concentrated at one end in an organ like the eye or the ear. The cells become active when something from outside the animal produces the stimulus which activates that particular kind of sensory cell. These cells and their immediately following cells are called “exteroceptors” (extero for outside, captor for receptor). We know more about ourselves and about the World than the exteroceptors convey. There are specialized nerve-cells, related not to external stimuli but to something internal. We know, for instance, whether we are standing on one leg or two, whether our fist is clenched or not. We know this from other specialized nerve-cells called “interceptors” and “proprioceptors”, which give information, not about the World but about such things as the amount of tension in a muscle or the amount of a hormone in the blood. Partly through these, we know how we feel: tense or relaxed, alert or sleepy, joyous or sad, satisfied or uncomfortable. There is of course more to feelings than this, and we will look at it in greater detail at a later time—here we are just looking at the neurophysiological process involved. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

In Jesus’s own ministry he came proclaiming access to the kingdom of God: to God’s present care and supervision, available to all through confidence in oneself. “Repent, for life in the kingdom of the Heavens is now available to you,” was what one said. And his presence, actions, and teachings manifested and explained the kingdom. He made “disciples” by presenting them with the kingdom and introducing them into it by reaching their hearts, changing their vision of reality and their intensions for life. Consider one of his “parables of the kingdom”: “The kingdom of the Heavens is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man fund and concealed it. He was ecstatic. He sol d everything he had and bought the field,” reports Matthew 13.44. Imagine that you discovered gold or oil in a certain property and no one else knew about it. Can you see yourself being sad and feeling deprived for having to gather all your resources and sacrifice them in order to buy that property? Hardly! Now you know what it is like to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus! Some pain is included, no doubt, because the old attachments are still there in our hearts and lives. They never all disappear at once. And we may experience some uncertainty from time to time, especially at the start. However, the progress of spiritual formation will soon take care of that. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

The new vision becomes an attachment and takes on an ever greater reality as we progress; and that, in turn, pushes the old attachments toward the exits of our lives—which we then are not sad to see go. Indeed we are happy about it. We come to want to not want what we now want, and to want to not think of what now lives before our mind; and we come to want to be made willing for what we are not now really willing. So the self-denial of Matthew 16.24 and elsewhere in the Gospels is always the surrender of a lesser, dying self for a greater eternal one—the person God intended in creating you. Confidence in this is the occasion of “greatly rejoicing, with joy unspeakable and full of glory,” reports 1 Peter 1.8. Jesus does not deny us personal fulfillment, but shows us the only true way to it. In him we find out life. He would keep us from selling our birthright as creatures in God’s image—a birthright of genuine goodness, sufficiency, and power for which we are fitted by nature—for a mere bowl of soup (Genesis 25.30-31): perhaps a little illicit pleasures of the flesh, money, reputation, power, self-righteousness, and so forth—“the pleasures of sin for a season”—or for the mere promise or possibility of such. The “cross” we must take is laid upon all obsessive partial desires, so that that broad reach agape love can integrate for us a while and eternal life with God and man. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Jesus was not some harsh ascetic who practiced or imposed pain for its own sake. He did not choose death because it was good in itself, but “for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and despised the shame,” reports Hebrews 12.2. To take him as our master means that we trust his way is right and, as he himself did, always look to the larger good under God. Like him we keep on entrusting ourselves to the One who judges righteously (1 Peter 2.23). This is “losing our life and thereby saving it: in the manner Jesus taught. I mean to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, humans being taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this inquiry I shall endeavour always to unite what right sanctions with what is prescribed by interest, in order that justice and utility may in no case be divided. I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics. As I was born a citizen of a free State, member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for living that of my own country. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Humans are born free; and everywhere one is in chains. One thinks oneself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer. If took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: “As long as people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away.” But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all others rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions. Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just asserted. The most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural is the family: and even so the children remain attached to the father only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children, released from the obedience they owed to the fathers, and the father, released from the care he owed his children, return equally to independence. If they remain united, they continue so no longer naturally, but voluntarily; and the family itself is then maintained only by convention. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

This common liberty results from the nature of humans. Their first law is to provide for one’s own preservation, one’s first cares are those which one owes to oneself; and, as soon as one reaches years of discretion, one is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving oneself, and consequently becomes one’s own master. The family then may be called the first model of political societies: the ruler corresponds to the father, and the people to the children; and all, being born free and equal, alienate their liberty for their own advantage. The whole difference is that, in the family, the love of the father one’s children repays him for the care he takes of them, while, in the State, the pleasure of commanding takes the place of the love which the chief cannot have for the peoples under hum. Grotius denies that all human power is established in favour of the governed, and quotes slavery as an example. His usual method of reasoning is constantly to establish right fact. It would be possible to employ a more logical method, but none could be more favourable to tyrants. It is then, according to Grotius, doubtful whether the human race belongs to a hundred men, or that hundred men to the human race: and, he seems to incline to the former alternative, which is also the view of Hobbes. On this showing, the human species is divided into so many herds of cattle, each with its ruler, who keeps guard over them for the purpose of devouring them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, the shepherds of men, for instance, their rulers, as of a nature superior to that of the peoples under them. Thus, Philo tells us, the Emperor Caligula reasoned, concluding equally well either that kings were gods, or that men were beasts. The reasoning of Caligula agrees with that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before any of them, had said that men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are born for slavery, and others for dominion. Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every person born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the democratic party seems to. For instance, while Governor of California, Gavin Newsom brags about the state of California having a $21 billion surplus of taxpayer money, there is a homeless crisis. In cities, like Oakland, and Los Angeles, parks are now becoming homeless camps. And in cities like Sacramento, while people are having a shortage of affordable housing, Mayor Darrel Steinberg is using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to whip up unnecessary sports complexes and slapping together a $220 million expansion and renovation on the Convention Center and the Memorial Auditorium. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Remember, the new King’s area cost taxpayers about $300 million and only took about two years to put up. With over half a billion taxpayer dollars being spent on unnecessary entertainment in Sacramento, we should not have an affordable housing crisis, nor one single person sleeping on the street. However, no one will move to impeach democratic leaders for using and abusing taxpayers and their money. I guess it is true. Slaves love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish conditions. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition. I have said noting of King Adam, or Emperor Noah, father of the three greatest monarchs who shared out the Universe, like the children of Saturn, whom some scholars have recognised in them. I trust to getting due thanks for my moderation; for, being a direct descendant of one of these princes, perhaps of the eldest branch, how do I know that a verification of titles might not leave me the legitimate king of the human race? In any case, there can be no doubt that Adam was sovereign of the World, as Robinson Crusoe was of his island, as long as he was its only inhabitant; and this empire had the advantage that the monarchs, safe on his throne, had no rebellions, wars, or conspirators to fear. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Merciful Lord, the Comforter and Teacher of Thy faithful people, increase in Thy Church the desires which Thou hast given, and confirm the hearts of those who hope in Thee by enabling them to understand the depth of Thy promises; that all Thine adopted sons may even now behold with the eyes of faith, and patiently wait for, the light which as yet Thou dost not openly manifest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who hast taught Thy Church to keep all Thy Heavenly commandments by loving Thy Godhead and our neighbour; grant us the spirit of peace and grace, that Thy Universal family may be both devoted to Thee with their whole heart, and united to each other with a pure will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “My beloved son, I write unto you again that ye may know that I am yet alive; but I write somewhat of that which is grievous. Behold, I am labouring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with sharpness they harden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them. For so exceedingly do they anger that it seemeth me that they have no fear of death; and they have lost their love, one towards another; and they thirst after blood and revenge continually,” reports Moroni 9.1 and 4-5. O Saviour of Sinners, Thy name is excellent, Thy glory high, Thy compassion unfailing, Thy condescension wonderful, Thy mercy tender. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

I bless thee for the discoveries invitations, promises of the gospel for in them is pardon for rebels, liberty for captives, health for the sick, homes for the homeless, salvation for the lost. I come to thee in thy beloved name of Jesus; re-impress thy image upon my soul; raise me above the smiles and frowns of the World, regarding it as a light thing to be judged by humans; may Thy approbation be my only aim, thy word my one rule. Make me to abhor that which grieves Thy Holy Spirit, to suspect consolations of a Worldly nature, to shun a careless way of life, to reprove evil, to instruct with meekness those who oppose me, to be gentle and patient toward all people, to be not only a professor but an example of the gospel displaying in every relation, office, and condition its excellency, loveliness and advantages. How little have I illustrated my principles and improved my privileges! How seldom I served my generation! How often have I injured and not recommended my redeemer! How few are those blessed through me! In many things I have offended, in all come short of Thy glory; pardon my iniquity, for it is great. “And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labour diligently; for if we should cease to labour, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labour to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the Kingdom of God,” reports Moroni 8.6. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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February 17, 2020 3:17 am

Life is but an Empty Dream for the Soul is Dead that Slumbers, and things are Not what they Seem!

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. A leader is someone who has the capacity to create a compelling vision that takes people to a new place, and to translate that vision into action. Leaders draw other people to them by enrolling them in their vision. What leaders do is inspire people, empower them. They attract people and opportunities, rather than repelling them. The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we will miss it, but that it is too low and we will reach it. The kind of master one should seek is one who will be a loving one—a master who is large hearted enough to receive one, sins, weakness, foolishness, and all. Other things being equal, choose your teacher from among those who are mature and sincere for they have insight and experiences which many people lack; they can give the tranquil counsel which comes from the acceptance of life, the adjustment to its situations, and the waning of physical desires. The teacher is not to be measured only by one’s weaker disciples nor by one’s foolish pupils. A juster measurement must take into reckoning the wiser and stronger ones also. What one has done for most of them has been done in spite of themselves, for the egos have thwarted or twisted one’s influence all too often. Nevertheless it is there and in twenty or thirty years it will still be there, inevitable and inescapable, awaiting the thinning down of the ego’s resistance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

It is a discriminating seeker who responds only to what is wise and true and fine in a teacher, but rejects what is frail or fallible in one. A student is often dismayed, anxious, or upset by the aura of apparent impersonality which surrounds the Teacher. Such reactions are natural but also must be checked—which can be done by learning to smile at oneself and be at peace. Do not look for truth among the unbalanced, the ego-obsessed, the brainless, they hysterical and the unsensitive. Look for it among the modest, the serene, the intuitive, the deep-divers and those who honour God to His uttermost. Many take to an imperfect, half-competent or half-satisfactory teaching because no better one is available. Incompetent instruction is undesirable but it may be helpful in some cases if stopped at the proper point. The student may be certain that if there be competent guidance on this path there is no standing still. Either one must go forward and onward until one reaches the goal, or one must get rid of one’s guide. The politics of the client-centered approach is a conscious renunciation and avoidance by the therapist of all control over, or decision-making for, the client. It is the facilitation of self-ownership by the client. It is the facilitation of self-ownership by the client and the strategies by which this can be achieved; the placing of the locus of decision-making and the responsibility for the effects of these decisions. It is politically centered in the client. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Client-centered therapy has forever changed the politics of psychotherapy by the recording and publishing of transcribed therapeutic interviews. The mysterious, unknowable operations of the therapist are now wide open for all to see. This has let a breath of fresh air and common sense pervade the therapeutic World. The individual is able at least to choose a school of therapy that appears congenial to one. And where, at first, only client-centered interviews are available on tape recordings expert therapists of a variety of orientations. Humanistic psychology has served to demystify the nature of therapy. Both the theory and the practice of therapeutic change should be made public, so that this knowledge can be share in common by both the patient and the therapist. It is not a matter of the therapist following the old authoritarian medical model of keeping the patient in the dark as a patriarch might treat a child…It is a matter of the habituated, unhappy individual regaining self-control and self-maintenance of one’s own wholeness and health. Of course, this is a most unprofessional procedure, for it gives away the authority, the secrecy and the unquestionability of the professional healer and therapist. And it gives these things away to the patient. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The center of the therapeutic action is not, therefore, considered to be within the therapist’s decisions but within the patient’s decisions. The World-Mind does not fully declare its intentions toward us humans but does give us enough inkling of them through the teachers and prophets of the face. These great souls who have ascended to another plane of being altogether have sent us signals from that distant sphere. It is for us to heed those signals and to understand their meaning. The knowledge of someone far better than oneself shows human possibilities. The longing to become like one provides an individual with an ideal for living. The examples of good beings help us when we compare ourselves with them, and especially our worst with their best. History has honoured those individuals who have gone into the far places of this globe and explored them. It is not time to honour those who have gone deep, not far, within themselves and explored consciousness. A real need of humanity eventually finds its expression in flesh and blood. Just as an oppressive tyranny ultimately produces the rebel who overthrows it, so a growing hunger for spiritual guidance ultimately brings forth those who are to provide it. Those who have lavished their devotion on such an ideal, have lavished it wisely. It is hardly necessary to say that the person-centered view drastically alters the therapist-patient relationship, as previously conceived. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

The therapist becomes the trained healthy professional who helps sooth growing pain and deliverer of change, not its originator. One places the final authority in the hands of the client, whether in small things such as the correctness of a therapist responses, or large decisions like the course of one’s life direction. The locus of evaluation, of decision, rests clearly in the client’s hands. A person-centered approach is based on the premise that the human being is basically a trustworthy organism, capable of evaluating the outer and inner situation, understanding oneself in its context, making constructive choices as to the next steps in life, and acting on those choices. A facilitative person can assist in releasing these capacities when relating as a real person to the other, owning and expressing one’s own feelings; when experiencing a nonpossessive caring and love for the other; and when acceptingly understanding the inner World of the other. When this approach is made to an individual or a group, it is discovered that, over time, the choices made, the directions pursued, the actions take are increasingly constructive personally and tend toward a more realistic social harmony with others. So familiar has this humanistic, person-centered concept become—more familiar in the realm of the intellect than in actual practice—that we sometimes forget what a blow it struck at that views then current. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

It has taken me years to recognize that the violent opposition to a client-centered therapy sprang not only from its newness, and the fact that it came from a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist, but primarily because it struck such an outrageous blow to the therapist’s power. It was in its politics than it was most threatening. Dr. Freud shows his degree of distrust of the basic nature of humans when he says, speaking of the need for super-ego control: “Our mind, that precious instrument by whose means we maintain ourselves alive, is no peacefully self-contained unity. It is rather to be compared with a modern State in which a mob, eager for enjoyment and destruction, has to be held down forcibly by a prudent superior class.” To the end of his days, Dr. Freud still felt that if human’s basic nature were released, nothing but destruction could be expected. The need for control of this beast within humans was a matter of the greatest urgency. “The core of our being, then, is formed by the obscure id…The one and only endeavour of these instincts is toward satisfaction…But an immediate and regardless satisfaction of instinct, such as the id demands, would often enough lead to perilous conflicts with the external World and to extinction…The id obeys the inexorable pleasure principle…and it remains a question of the greatest theoretical importance, and one that has not yet been answered, when and how it is ever possible for the pleasure principle to be overcome.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

The great majority of people have a strong need for authority which they can admire, to which they can submit, and which dominates and sometimes even ill-treats them. We have learned from the psychology of the individual whence comes this need of the masses. It is the longing for the father that lives in each of us from one’s childhood days. When one has an astonishing mutuality of soul and the immediacy of one’s love is followed by profound commitment—it allows for another person to make a covenant with someone else because there is an ability to love the other person as oneself. With such subline spiritual theatre—it is a symbolism of a noble soul. The son of a Chief Executive Officer will stand humbly in one’s street clothes, while the merchant’s son dons the prince’s attire. This is because materialism is not always a factor in friendship. Just because one is more affluent does not mean they have to flaunt it or have the best of everything. This type of symbolic divestiture places one’s peer as one’s equal regardless of finances, and also represents a conscious display of vulnerability and real risk. The Shakespearean gesture means, “My life for your life,”—and one means every bit of it. We may wonder if such friendships are really possible for common people who are not spiritual giants. The deepest friendships have in common a desire to make the other person royalty. They work for and rejoice in the other’s elevation and achievements. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

There are no hooks in deep and honest friendships, no desire to manipulate or control, no jealousy or exclusiveness—simply a desire for the best for the other. To love a person means to see one as God intended one to be. Do you have the great fortune to have such a deep friend? What did St. Paul mean when he said all God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ? First of all, Christ in His Messianic mission is the personal fulfillment of all the promises in the Old Testament regarding a Saviour and coming King. In Christ is the yes, the grand consummating affirmative, to all God’s promises. He is the horn of salvation raised up for us by God, “as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets which have been since the World began,” reports Luke 1.69. In Him all things “which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms” achieve their fulfillment reports Luke 24.44. The covenant promises addressed to Abraham and his seed are realized in His single person as reported in Galatians 3.16. Beyond the actual fulfillment of all the promises made about Him, Christ is also the meritorious basis upon which all of God’s other promises depend. All of God’s promises depend upon Christ alone. This is a notable assertion and one of the main articles of our faith. It depends in turn upon another principle—that it is only in Christ that God the Father is graciously inclined towards us. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

His promises are testimonies of His Fatherly goodwill towards us. Thus it follows that they are fulfilled only in Christ. Secondly, we are incapable of possessing God’s promises till we have received the remissions of our sins and that comes to us through Christ. Think just now of what you feel your greatest needs are, both spiritually and temporally. As you bring those needs to God in prayer, which would you rather present to Him as a consideration for meeting those needs: your spiritual disciplines, your obedience, and your sacrifice, imperfect as they are; or the infinite and perfect merit if Jesus? To ask the question is to answer it, is it not? I do not mean to disparage any spiritual discipline, commitment, or sacrifice. These all have their place in the realm of grace. However, they are never to be relied on as a meritorious cause for expecting God’s blessing or answer to prayer. Blessings that at times come to us through our labours and at times without our labours, but never because of our labours; for God always gives them because of His undeserved mercy. If only we will learn to rest our entire cause of the merits of Jesus Christ, instead of our own, we will learn the joy of living by grace and not by sweat. One of the greatest dangers on the process of spiritual formations is that self-denial and death to self will be taken as but one more technique or job for those who wish to save their life (soul). #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Self-denial will then externalize itself in overt practice of group identity that may seem very sacrificial, but can leave the “mind of the flesh” in full control. We see this, for example, in many who wear what they regard as plain clothing or who abstain from certain foods. A well-known Methodist evangelist of other years, Sam Jones, used to say that a dancing foot and a praying knew do not grow on the same leg. This might prove to be a fairly good empirical generalization. It may be that as a matter of fact few prayerfully bent knees are on legs with a dancing foot at the end. Still, just not dancing would hardly prove that you had abandoned your life to God. Practices of “mortification” can become exercises in more self-righteousness. How often this has happened! This dreary and deadly “self-denial,” which is all too commonly associated with religion, can be avoided only if the primary fact of our inner being is a loving vision of Jesus and His kingdom. This is where correctly counting the cost comes in. Then outward manifestation of self-denial, or the absence thereof, will matter little, as it did for him. The impression gained by most who hear about “counting the cost” of following Jesus is one of how terrible and painful that cost is. However, to count the cost is to take into consideration both the losses and the gain of all possible actions, to see which is most beneficial. This done, Jesus knew, the trails of apprenticeship (discipleship) would appear to be the only reasonable path. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

As has been said, “One is not a fool who gives up what one cannot keep for the sake of what one can never lose.” The cost of non-discipleship would then be seen for what it is—unbearable. That is why one would become able to sustain cheerfully the much smaller “cost of discipleship” to Jesus. By the same reason may a being in the state of nature punish the lesser breaches of that law. It will perhaps be demanded, with death? I answer, each transgression may be punished to that degree, and with so much severity, as will suffice to make it an ill bargain to the offender, give one cause to repent, and terrify others from doing the like. Every offence, that can be committed in the state of nature, may in the state of nature be also punished equally, and as far forth as it may, in a commonwealth: for though it would be besides my present purpose, to enter here into the particulars of the law of nature, or its measures of punishment; yet, it is certain there is such a law, and that too, as intelligible and plain to a rational creature, and a studier of that law, as the absolute laws of commonwealths; nay, possibly plainer; as much as reason is easier to be understood, than the fancies and intricate contrivances of humans, following contrary and hidden interests put into words; for so truly are a great part of the municipal laws of countries, which are only so far right, as they are founded on the laws of nature, by which they are to be regulated and interpreted. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

To this strange doctrine, viz. That in the state of nature everyone has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for people to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make people partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of beings. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the insolvencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own cases, since it is easy to be imagined, that one who was so unjust as to do one’s brother an injury, will scare be so just as to condemn oneself for it: but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but humans; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from human’s being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to how much better it is than the state of nature, where one being, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in one’s own case, and may do to all one’s subjects whatever one pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute one’s pleasure? #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

And in whatsoever one cloth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to? Much better it is in the state of nature, wherein humans are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another: and if one that judges, judges amiss in one’s own, or any other case, one is answerable for it to the rest of humankind. It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were there any humans in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the World, are in a state of nature, it is plain the World never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of beings in that state. I have named all governors of independent communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others: for it is not every compact that puts one community, and make one body politic; other promises, and compacts, human may make one with another, and yet still be in the state of nature. The promises and bargains for truck, &c. between the two men in the desert island, mentioned by Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru; or between a Swiss and an Indian, in the woods of America, are binding to them, through they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another: for truth and keeping of faith belongs to humans, as human, and not as members of society. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

To those that say, there were never any people in state of nature, I will not only oppose the authority of the judicious Hooker, Eccl, Pol. Lib. i. sect. 10, where he says: “The laws which have been hitherto mentioned, i.e. the laws of nature, do bind humans absolutely, even as they are human, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do, or not to do: but forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things, needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, as living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others: this was the cause of human’s uniting themselves at first in politic societies.” However, I moreover affirm, that all humans are naturally in that state, and remain so, till by their own consents they make themselves members of some political society; and I doubt not in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear. “Pray for them, my son, that repentance may come unto them. But behold, I fear lest the Spirit hath ceased striving with them; and in this part of the land they are also seeking to put down all power and authority which cometh from God; and they are denying the Holy Ghost,” reports Moroni 8.28. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Lord Jesus Christ, Very God and Very Man, Who changest not, but art holy in all Thy works; turn away from us the unbelief of a doubtful mind, and fill our heart with the gifts of Thy grace; that we may believe and know Thee to be Very God, Who by miracles and mighty works are proved to be Saviour of all. We beseech Thee, O Lord, continually to strengthen us by a sincere faith in Thine Incarnation; that the crafty enemy may never be able to overcome us who are established in the love of Thee. Arise, Lord, Who judgest the Earth; and us Thou dwellest in and possesses the faith of all nations, suffer us not to abide in darkness; and grant that we may not lay the foundations of our faith on the sand where the whirlwind may overthrow them, but be established on the rock which is steadfast in Thee. O Heavenly Father, teach me to see that if Christ has pacified thee and satisfied divine justice He can also deliver me from my sins; that Christ does not desire me, now justified, to live in self-confidence in my own strength, but gives me the law of the Spirit of life to enable me to obey thee; that the Spirit and His power are mine by resting on Christ’s death; that the Spirit of life within answers to the law without; that if I sin not I should thank thee for it; that if I sin I should be humbled daily under it; that I should mourn for sin more than other people do, for when I die I shall die because of sin, that makes me mourn. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

When I see how sin strikes at Thee, that makes me mourn; when I see that sin caused Christ’s death, that makes me mourn; that sanctification is the evidence of reconciliation, proving that faith has truly apprehended Christ; Thou has taught me that faith is nothing else than receiving they kindness; that it is an adherence to Christ, a resting on Him, love clinging to Him as a branch to the tree, to seek life and vigour from Him. I thank thee for showing me that vast difference between knowing things by reason, and knowing them by the Spirit of faith. By reason I see a thing is so; by faith I know it as it is. I have seen thee by reason and have not been amazed, I have seen thee as thou art in Thy Son and have been ravished to behold thee. I bless thee that I am thine in my Saviour, Jesus. It is good for us to hold fast by Thee, O Lord; but do Thou so increase in us the desire of good, that the hope which joins us to Thee may not be shaken by any wavering of faith, but may endure in stedfastness of love. May the hope which Thou hast given us, O Lord, be our consolation in our law estate, as it will fill us with glory in the day of our rejoicing. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Lives of great people all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

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February 15, 2020 2:37 am

This Love Will Pay Great Dividends Because Honest, Unselfish Love Has Irresistible Drawing Power!

Some people drink at the fountain of knowledge while others just gargle. When you use your sense of humor, be sure that you use your sense as well as your humor. What can we say fundamentally about the nature of being? And the answer is nothing in terms of a definition, but something in terms of metaphorical indication. The concept of power for this purpose: Being is the power of being! Power, however, presupposed, even in the metaphorical use of the word, something over which it proves its power. The dynamic self-affirmation of life is overcoming internal and external resistance. By what measures can people judge in reality which is unseen and not in illusion, the moral rectitude of a being who has been sent among them with a mission, who has not only secretly dissolved one’s human “I” but has secretly taken and faithfully kept the self-actualized person’s vows? The vast reticence of such a being will be respected by those who are sensitive but may infuriate those who are not. Because of the many seeming contradictions in one’s nature one may be much misunderstood by others. Humanity venerates the memory of these prophets, but in decreasing degree. For they incarnate values, attainments, and qualities which most people feel are far above any likelihood of their own coming even remotely near. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Contrary to common belief, the illuminate is not a joyless griefless human who has crushed all human affection, sterilized all human feelings, sunk oneself in physical inertia, and habituated oneself to insensitivity toward the sufferings of others. Such a being cannot be really known by those who have not themselves touched one’s height; part of one—the most important and precious part—must always remain an inscrutable stranger to them. To one observer such a being seems to live inside oneself, to another outside oneself. To the first, one is held fast to some internal power; to the second, one is constantly practising self-identification with others. One’s followers expect too much from one, perhaps because they credit one with powers far beyond what one does possess. This leads to a measure of disappointment. If others think one aloof, cold, even unsympathetic, they may go further and misunderstand the individual. One is not shut stonily in one’s ego, as they think, but on the contrary, is much freer from it than they are. It is possible that one’s actions sometimes puzzle those who put their trust in one. Those who judge only by appearances may be surprised and aggrieved at one’s seeming indifference. However, with the efflux of time they may get to know more or all the facts, and then their puzzlement will vanish. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

They come to inspect the great soul, as if they could really see one. They bring out heir measuring equipment and pronounce verdict on one’s littleness or greatness. Their opinion is based on an appearance that is a possible illusion. Just as Pythagoras and Sokrates were maligned and even put to death by those who either misunderstand or misrepresented their teachings, so Epicurus, another Greek, has been maligned ever since one’s own time, although one fortunately died a natural death. Incidentally, he died of the stone. It could be that there was an excess of calcium in his body and that it had got concentrated in the wrong place, producing the stone in the bladder or the kidney—for he tried to live a simple life and ate only barely, bread, and cheese and drank only water. There was probably an excess of cheese in his diet, producing the excess of calcium. However, it is supposed that he preached heathenism, the pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment as being the highest good, but the truth is, as demonstrated by his simple life, that he was an ascetic. Epicurus did not believe in cluttering himself up with a lot of possession and he sought the freedom from anxiety which this gave him. The freedom from those desires for luxuries and comforts which fill most people left him with a serene mind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

This serenity was enjoyable and pleasant; so what one meant by pleasure was a pleasure of living the good life, not the pleasure of living the terrestrial life. However, if Epicurus is to be judged by his diet, his philosophy was incomplete and imbalanced. Because he ever practices calmness, other persons may think of him to be indifferent to them, to what is happening, and to one’s own actions, as if he were performing them somewhat casually; but in this they would be mistaken. For the detachment within Epicurus was possessed deep down and consisted in a general attitude towards Worldly life based upon knowledge, understanding, philosophy. He was not heedless but attentive, not unresponsive but touched by situations calling for sympathy, not neutral where right or wrong are concerned, not neglectful of duties and responsibilities, not careless in work but carefree. When it comes, suffering is real and painful. The self-actualized is not heartless to its appearance in other people, but understands it somewhat better than they do. Such a being has enigma and paradox between one and the World’s understanding. It is easy for the populace to be deceived by one’s unassuming manners and unpretentious speech into thinking one to be anything but what one really is. One and the same Master will appear to one’s followers as an incarnation of God, but to the Worldly as a wise lunatic, if not a fraud. None of these views may be correct. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Although the self-actualized can understand the points of view of the unwise, the ignoramus, the Worlding and the bigot, they cannot understand one’s own. When one’s name is vilified, it is the wise guidance of God which persuades such a being to walk indifferently, and when one’s character is slandered, to hold one’s tongue. Those who do not understand and appreciate this great control of feeling, and especially those who are highly emotional themselves, will see one merely from the outside and consequently misunderstand one’s character. They will consider one to be a cold, shut-in type. The World will assess one’s motives at the lowest level, interpret one’s actions in the basest way. If one were to let it rot in its own ignorance, one would be well justified. To evaluate the work and word of these beings is to judge by appearances alone. For there is in both an incalculable element, a hidden worth. The initiate does not waste one’s time in arguing with others, either to attack their beliefs or defend one’s Own. If one seems outwardly distant and indifferent, we should understand that one’s distance and one’s indifference are not egoistic, and consequently are worthy of close examination and deep study. They contain a mystery as well as a paradox. For in one’s heart there flows, side by side, both a pure love for humanity and an utter detachment from humanity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

It is in the very nature of one’s attainment of a true philosopher’s status that one should be able to fulfill oneself only by going beyond all selves—ours as well as one’s own. The World should be more grateful for the presence of such people. The good they do is mostly indirect, however, through intermediaries, or mostly hidden because psychological, so it escapes the World’s notice. Light the lamps and it will spread out its rays by itself. We are indeed blessed by the presence of these great souls on this Earth and doubly so if we meet in person. They deserve not merely our respect but our veneration. However, even if we are never fortunate enough to meet one of these masters, the mere knowledge that such beings do exist and live demonstrates the possibility of spiritual achievement and proves that the quest is no chimera. It should comfort and encourage us to know this. Therefore we should regard such a being as one of humanity’s precious treasures. We should venerate one’s sayings or writings as whispers out of the eternal silence. However, if everything that is participate in it, we must ask, what can resist the power of being? If all possible places are established by the power of being, where is the ontological place of that which the power of being is able to overcome. What can that be which is conquered by the power of being is non-being. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

It is an old answer, given in the myth long before the dawn of philosophy, repeated in rational terms by philosophers in all cultures and centuries, brought to a renewed attention in our time by the leading Existentialist philosophers. However, if one tries to relate to that answer that the power of being is conquered by non-being, one must be aware that one has touched at the basic mystery of existence and that one has no chance to explain the riddle of non-being in terms which do not bear in themselves the scars of non-being, namely the language of the paradox. Nobody can fail to ask the question: How can non-being have the power to resist being? Does it not appear in such a statement as a part of being itself, and if so, is it not swallowed up into being, so that the metaphor “power of being” become meaningless? It is understandable that the analytic logic of our time becomes impatient if such language is used and speaks of meaningless sentences. However, if it becomes impatient with present-day ontology it must become impatient with all ontology and reject the works of almost all philosophers of past and present. And that is what logical affirmations have done. However, such a procedure does not defeat philosophers of the past. It defeats those who try to defeat them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

The answer to the question how non-being can resist the power of being, can only be that non-being is not foreign to being, but that it is that quality of being by which everything that participates in being is negated. Non-being is the negation of being within being itself. Each of these words is, of course, used metaphorically. However, metaphorical language can be true language, pointing to something that is both revealed and hidden in this language. Being which includes non-being is finite being. “Finite” means carrying within one’s being the destiny not to be. It designates a limited power of being, limited between a beginning and an end, between non-being before and non-being after. This, however, is only a part of the answer. The other part must explain why in the balance of being and non-being, being prevails. The answer is both logical and existential. Logically (and linguistically) it is obvious that non-being after. This, however, is only a part of the answer. The other part must explain why in the balance of being and non-being, being prevails. The answer is both logical and existential. Logically (and linguistically) it is obvious that non-being is possible only as the negation of being. Being logically precedes non-being. That which is and comes to an end logically precedes the end. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

The negative “lives” by the absolute it negates. However, these answers, evident as they are, do not satisfy the question of the prevalence of being over non-being. Could one not speak of a balance in which neither prevails? To this only an existential answer is possible. It is what one has called the answer of faith or courage. Courage, and that in faith which is courage, affirms the ultimate prevalence of being over non-being. It affirms the presence of the infinite in everything finite. And a theology which is based on such a courage tries to show that, as non-being is dependent on the being it negates, so the awareness of finitude presupposes a place above finitude from which the finite is seen as finite. However, the act in which the place is occupied is courage and not reasoning. Every being affirms its own being. Its life is its self-affirmation—even if its self-affirmation has the form of self-surrender. Every being resists the negation against itself. The self-affirmation of a being is correlate to the power of being it embodies. It is greater in humans than in animals and in some people greater than in others. A life process is the more powerful, the more non-being it can include in its self-affirmation, without being destroyed by it. The neurotic can include only a little non-being, the average person a limited amount, the creative being a large amount, God-symbolically speaking—an infinite amount. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

The self-affirmation of a being in spite of non-being is the expression of its power of being. Power is the possibility of self-affirmation is spite of internal and external negation. It is the possibility of overcoming non-being. Human power is the possibility of humans to overcome non-being infinitely. In several places in this history of philosophy, notably in the Platonic school, degrees of being have been spoken of. This concept is difficult and highly controversial. It appears to be meaningless if being is identified with existence in time and space. There are no degrees in existing, but an either-or. If, however, being is described as the power of being, the idea of degrees of being loses its difficulty. There are, certainly, degrees in the power of being, namely in the power of taking non-being into one’s own self-affirmation. I tried years ago to describe the process of change as it is inwardly experienced by the client in a person-centered therapy with a male therapist: “I am afraid of the therapist. I want help, but I do not know whether to trust him. He might see things which I do not know in myself—frightening and bad elements. He seems not to be judging me, I am sure he is. I cannot tell him what really concerns me, but I can tell hum about some past experiences that relate to my concerns. He seems to understand those, so I can reveal a bit more of myself. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

“However, not that I have shard with him some of this bad side of me, he despises me. I am sure of it, but it is strange I can find little evidence of it. Do you suppose that what I have told him is not so bad? It is possible that I need not be ashamed of it as a part of me? I no longer feel that he despises me. It makes me feel that I want to go further, exploring me, perhaps expressing more of myself. I find him a sort of companion as I do this—he seems really to understand. However, not I am getting frightened again, and this time deeply frightened I did not realize that exploring the unknown recesses of myself would make me feel feelings I have never experienced before. It is very strange because in one way these are not new feelings. I sense that they have always been there. However, they seem so bad and disturbing I have never dared to let them flow in me. And now as I live these feelings in the hours with him, I feel terribly shaky, as though my World is falling apart. It used to be sure and firm. Now it is loose, permeable and vulnerable. It is not pleasant to feel things I have always been frightened of before. It is his fault. Yet curiously I am eager to see him and I feel more safe when I am with him. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

“I do not know who I am any more, but something when I feel things I seem solid and real for a moment. I am troubled by the contradictions I find in myself—I act one way and feel another—I think one thing and feel another. It is very disconcerting. It is also sometimes adventurous and exhilarating to be trying to discover who I am. Sometimes I catch myself feeling that perhaps the person I am is worth being, whatever that means. I am beginning to find it very satisfying, though often painful, to share just what it is I am feeling at this moment. You know it is really helpful to try to listen to myself, to heart what is going on it me. I am not so frightened any more of what is going on in me. It seems pretty trustworthy. I use some of my hours with him to dig deep into myself to know what I am feeling. It is scary work, but I want to know. And I do trust him most of the time, and that helps. I feel pretty vulnerable and raw, but I know he does not want to hurt me, and I even believe he cares. It occurs to me as I try to let myself down and down, deep int myself, that maybe if I could sense what is going on in me, and could realize its meaning, I would know who I am, and would also know what to do. At least I feel this knowing sometimes with him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

“I can even tell him just how I am feeling toward him at any given moment, and instead of this killing the relationship, as I used to fear, it seems to deepen it. Do you suppose I could be my feelings with other people also? Perhaps that would not be too dangerous either. You know, I feel as if I am floating along on the current of life very adventurously, being me. I get defeated sometimes, I get hurt sometimes, but I am learning that those experiences are not fatal. I do not know exactly who I am, but I can feel my reactions at any given moment, and they seem to work out pretty well as a basis for my behaviour from moment to moment. Maybe this is what it means to be me. However, of course I can only do this because I feel safe in the relationship with my therapist. Or could I be myself this way outside of this relationship? I wonder. I wonder. Perhaps I could.” The initial element in a great friendship is a mutuality of soul. People are sometimes able to become one spirit. Their souls will be bound together. This type of bonding usually happens when people view life from the same divine perspective (God is sovereign and does as He pleases, and all of life is to be lived from Him). And when people see this, their soul reflexively clings to someone else’s. Here is a person with a heart that beats with one’s own heart. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

This is the way it is with deep friendships. It is not that friends think alike on everything. Often it is quite the opposite. However, they do share the same Worldview and approach to life. And this is why a Christian friendship exceeds anything that exists between nonbelievers—for such a friendship is founded on a supernatural mutuality of soul. They Holy Spirit makes your souls chorus the same cries. You assent to the same authority. You know the same God. You are going the same way. You long for the same things. You dream mutual dreams. Mutuality of soul is followed by love. as the next phrase indicates—and one is able to love their friend as one loves oneself. This is an amazing statement because of its immediacy. This type of love does not develop in a month or even a day, but in a flash. It is usually because your kind soul meets such a deep need in another person’s—”At last I have found someone who lives like me!” When one is able to love oneself, in doing so one is also able to love one’s neighbor as oneself—and thus fulfilling the Law of God. His love would pay great dividends because honest, unselfish love has an irresistible drawing power. You will one day also be drawn to the same love. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The same tone applies to Jesus’ teaching about who can be his disciple or apprentice. This too is put in very shocking language: “If you come to me,” he said, “and do not prefer me over (do not hate) your own father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters—yes, and your very own life (soul)—you cannot be my apprentice,” reports Luke 14.26. And then he uses an absolutely shocking image—one all too familiar to his hearers, but rather hard for us fully to appreciate today. It was that of a man carrying on hi back the lumber that would be used to kill him when he arrived at the place of execution. “Whoever does not come after me carrying one’s own cross cannot be my apprentice,” reports Luke 14.27. The cross is an instrument of death, of “losing your life.” The teaching here is exactly the same as in the statements about losing and finding our lives. It is one of comparative costs, as the verses that follow in Luke 14 show. Those who are not genuinely convinced that the only real bargain in life is surrendering ourselves to Jesus and his cause, abandoning all that we love to him and for him, cannot learn the other lessons Jesus has to teach us. They cannot proceed to anything like total spiritual transformation. Not that he will not let us, but that we simply cannot succeed. If I tell you that you cannot drive a BMW M760Li automobile unless you can see, I am not saying I will not let you, but that you cannot succeed even if I do. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Still, from within the life that remains “lost” to God, the teaching of the Cross and of abandoning all that is “first” in ordinary human life seems repulsive and impossible. And it has often been disastrously misinterpreted, resulting in the destruction, not the renovation, of the human heart and life. It remains a dangerous half-truth if left to stand on its own. It is a negation that in practice can only rest on an affirmation. “Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature,” 1 Corinthians 14.20. In thinking be mature! Such an admonition one would hardly expect in the context of apostolic writing. However, here it is, appearing in the same letter of Paul in which he contrasts sharply the wisdom of the World with that foolishness of God that is wiser than the wisdom of humans. And he points to the fact that not many wise humans belong to the ranks of the congregation, but that God has chosen what is foolish in the World. Maturity on the basis of divine foolishness—this is hard to understand—not only for the first readers of the letter to the Corinthians, but for all generations of Christians and non-Christians in the history of Christianity. In some way, the whole problem of the possibility of Christian existence is implied in this combination of divine foolishness and humanity. However, perhaps it is not only the problem of the possibility of Christian existence; perhaps it is the problem of human existence as such—how to unite divine foolishness with human maturity. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

From the distinct rights, one of punishing crimes for restraint, and preventing the like offense, which right of punishing is in every body; the other of taking reparation, which belongs only to the injured party, comes to pass the magistrate, who by being magistrate hath the common right of punishing put into one’s hands, can often, where the public good demands not the execution of law, remit the punishment of criminal offenses by one’s own authority, but yet cannot remit the satisfaction due to any private being for the damage one has received. That, one who has suffered the damage has a right to demand in one’s own name, and one alone can remit: the damnified person has this power of appropriating to oneself the goods or service of the offender, by right of self-preservation, as every being has, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from everybody, and also to secure beings from the attempts of a criminal, who having renounced reason, the common rule and measure God hath given to humankind, hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter one hath committed upon one, declared war against all humankind. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

And therefore, because one has declared war against all humankind, one may be destroyed as a lion or a tyger, one of those wild savage beasts, with whom human can have no society nor security: and upon this grounded that the great law of nature, Whoso sheddeth human’s blood, by human shall one’s blood be shed. And Cain was so fully convinced, that every one had a right to destroy such a criminal, that after the murder of his brother, he cries out, Everyone that findeth me, shall slay me; so plain was it writ in the hearts of all humankind. The fact is, of course, God is gracious and generous to all who are his children. God is not only sovereign, but He also dispenses His grace to people who do not even feel or know they deserve it. God is fully of gracious generosity. The Bible is full of God’s promises to provide for us spiritually and materially, to never forsake us, to give us peace in times of difficult circumstances, to cause all circumstances to work together for our good, and finally to bring us safely home to glory. Not one of those promises is dependent upon our performance. Hey are all dependent on the grace of God given to us through Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God,” reports 2 Corinthians 1.20. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

O God, Who art One and True, we humbly beseech Thee that the Catholic Faith, which is acceptable to Thee, may continue for ever in us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law. For the power of redemption cometh on all them that have no law; wherefore, one that is not condemned, or one that is under no condemnation, cannot repent; and unto such baptism availeth nothing—but it is mockery before God, denying the mercies of Christ, and the power of his Holy Spirit, and putting trust in dead works. Behold, my son, this thing ought not to be; for repentance is unto them that are under condemnation and under the curse of a broke law. And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments brings the remission of sins. And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto the prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God,” reports Moroni 8.22-26. O Holy Father, thou hast freely given thy Son, O Divine Son, thou hast freely paid my debt, O Eternal Spirit, thou hast freely bid me come, O Triune God, thou dost freely grace me with salvation. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Prayers and tears could not suffice to pardon my sins, nor anything less than atoning blood, but my believing is my receiving, for a thankful acceptance is no paying of the debt. What didst thou see in me? than I a poor, ailing, despised sinner should be clothed in thy bright glory? that a creeping worm should be advanced to this high state? that one lately groaning, weeping, dying, should be as full of joy as my heart can hold? that a being of dust and darkness should be taken like Mordecai from captivity, and set next to the king? should be lifted like Daniel from a den and be made ruler of princes and provinces? Who can fathom immeasurable love? As far as the rational soul exceeds the senses, so does the spirit exceed the rational in its knowledge of thee. Thou hast given me understanding to compass the Earth, measure the Sun, Moon, Stars, Universe, but above all to know thee, the only true God. I marvel that the finite can know the Infinite, here a little, afterwards in full-orbed truth; now I know but a small portion of what I shall know, here in part, there in perfection, here a glimpse, there a glory. To enjoy thee is life eternal, and to enjoy is to know. Keep me in the freedom of experiencing thy salvation continually. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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February 14, 2020 1:55 am

Do I Not Have the Right to do What I Want with My Own Money? Or are You Envious Because I am Generous?

An optimist goes to the window every morning and says, “Good morning, God.” The pessimist goes to the window every morning and says, “Good God! Morning!” If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. “And to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody,” reports 1 Thessalonians 4.11-12. If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a person, do not bother analyzing one’s ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much one is moved by noble ideas; if you watch one just laugh, you will get better results. If one laughs well, one is a good being. My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all people are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other person. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

A state also of equality, wherein in the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of one’s will, set one above another, and confer on one, by an evident and clear appoint, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. This equality of humans by nature must be built on the foundation of an obligation to mutual love amongst humans, on which one builds the duties they owe one another, and from whence one derives the great maxims of justice and charity. The like natural inducement hath brought people to know that it is no less their duty, to love others than themselves; for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every human’s hands, as any human can wish unto one’s own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the desire, which is undoubtedly in other beings, being of one and the same nature? #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

To have anything offered them repugnant to this desire, must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm, I must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me, than they have by me shewed unto them: my desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully like the affection; from which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn, for direction of life, no being is ignorant. However, though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though humans in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of one’s person or possessions, yet one has not liberty to destroy oneself, or so much as nay creature in one’s possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all humankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in one’s life, health, liberty, or possession: for humans being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

All the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the World by his order, not another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s. Every one, as one is bound to preserve oneself, and not to quit one’s station willfully, so by the like reason, when one’s own preservation comes not in competition, ought one, as much as one can, to preserve the rest of humankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another. And that all humans may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every human’s hands, where every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that laws to such a degree, as may hinder its violations: for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern humans in the World be in vain, if there were no body that in the state of nature may punish another for any evil one has done, every one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution of that law, every one must needs have a right to do. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Not only does God sovereignly determine how and to what extent He will bless us, He often blesses those who, in our opinion, seem most unworthy. We see this demonstrated rather forcefully in Jesus’s recounting of two Old Testament incidents as recorded in Luke 4.25-27: “I assure you that there were many windows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a window in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” Luke recorded that “all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.” Why were these Jewish people who heard Jesus so enraged that, as verse 29 tells us, they wanted to kill Him? It was because the widow and Naaman were despised Gentiles. In the opinion of the Jewry, these people were most unworthy. The reaction was, “How could God bless those Gentiles instead of more deserving Jewish people?” The fact is, God did bless those two Gentiles while passing right by His own chose people. Were in the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian more “deserving” than anyone in Israel? Not all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The Old Testament record of one’s healing indicates that Naaman, by his anger and haughtiness, was very undeserving. God often does bless people who seem to us to be quite unworthy. However, that is what grace is all about, because we are all unworthy. We rejoice in the generosity of God’s grace as it is directed toward us, or toward our family or friends. However, how do we feel wen someone whom we think does not deserve it is blessed by God? Are we envious because of the generosity of God toward that person? Do we feel, as did the workers in the parable, who got paid as much for one hour of work as did those who slaved away in the hot Sun for twelve hours, that we have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day, and yet that other person has been blessed more than we have? The workers who labored all day did not grumble because they received too little pay, but because less deserving workers received the same as they. The “A” students in the modern version of the parable were not outraged because they received only an “A,” but because some obviously undeserving students received the same grade. The reality of the Christian life, though, is that there is no “A” students in God’s Kingdom. Some are more obedient than others, some have labored more and sacrificed more than others, but none of us measures up to an “A.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

None of us wants to get what we actually deserve. We all want God’s grace, but we cannot enjoy God’s grace when there is an attitude of comparing. See the two groups of labourers as they severally wend their way home that evening. As to amount of money in their pockets, they are all equal: but as to amount of content in their spirits there is a great difference. The last go home each with a penny [a denarius] in one’s pocket, and astonished glad gratitude in one’s heart: their reward accordingly is a penny, and more. The first, on the contrary, go home, each with a penny in one’s pocket, and corroding discontent in one’s soul: their reward accordingly is less than a penny. Arnot believed it was in this sense that “the last will be first, and first will be last,” reports Matthew 20.16. That is, the last workers hired ended up “first” because they had a day’s wages plus contentment, whereas the first workers hired ended up “last” because of their discontentment. While that is certainly a helpful observation about life, I understand Jesus’ two statements in Matthew 19.30 and 20.16 somewhat differently than Arnot does. I believe Jesus is asserting the sovereign prerogative of God to dispense His favours as He pleases. I do not think His statement, “So the last will be the first, and the first will be last,” is to be taken in absolute sense as if this would always be the case. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

Rather, I think there is often no apparent correlation between what one seemingly “deserves” and what he or she receives. Remember, the whole point of the parable is to respond to Peter’s attitude as expressed in this statement: “The more we do, the more we earn, and the more God owes us.” If we are to succeed in living by grace, we must some to terms with the fact that God is sovereign in dispensing His gracious favours, and He owes us no explanation when His actions do not correspond with out system of merits. Indeed, as Paul said, “How unsearchable His decisions, and how mysterious His methods! For who has ever understood the thoughts of the Lord, or has even been His advisor?” reports Romans 11.33-34. We are left without any grounds for grumbling about the treatment we receive from God. God never becomes obligated to us, so He can always say to us, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you,” reports Matthew 20.13. At the same time God reserves the right to treat each of us differently, bestowing blessings as He sovereignly chooses. In the words of the landowner, God says to us, “Do I not have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” reports Matthew 20.15. Doing what you want—God’s way. What does that mean? It means that they will then for the first time be able to do what they want to do. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Of course they will be able to steal, lie, and murder all they want—which will be none at all. However, they will also be able to be truthful and transparent and helpful and sacrificially loving, with joy—and they will want to be. Their life will be in this way caught up in God’s life. They will want the good and be able to do it, the only true human freedom. The mind set on the spiritual is in that sense “life and peace,” reports Romans 8.6, because it lives from God and, “sowing into the spirit, out of the spirit reaps the eternal kind of life,” reports Galatians 6.8. So—and this is of utmost importance to those who would enter Christian spiritual formation—life as normally understood, where the object is securing myself, promoting myself, indulging myself, is to be set aside. “Can I still think about such things?” you may ask. Yes, you can. However, you increasingly will not. And when you do, as formation in Christlikeness progresses, they simply will not matter. In fact, they will seem ridiculous and uninteresting. Jesus’ words on not being anxious about what will happen to you and his admonitions to consider the flowers and birds, as reported in Luke 12.13-34, will seem obviously sane and right, whereas they previously sounded obviously crazy and wrong, or “out of touch with reality.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

From the perspective of interpersonal politics, this element of the relationship—congruence—gives a maximum space to be—for the client and for the therapist. The therapist is saying, in effect, “Here I am, as I am.” There is no hint of any kind of control over the client’s responses to one’s way of being. To the contrary, finding that the therapist is permitting oneself to be as one is, the client tends to discover that same freedom. The second attitude of importance in creating a climate for change is acceptance, or caring or prizing—unconditional beneficial regard. It means that when the therapist is experiencing an optimistic attitude, acceptant attitude toward whatever the client is at that moment, therapeutic movement r change is more likely. It involves the therapist’s willingness for the client to be whatever feeling is going on at that moment—confusion, resentment, fear, anger, courage, love, or pride. It is a nonpossessive caring. The therapist prizes the client in a total rather tan a conditional way. This resembles the love the parent sometimes feels toward the infant. Research indicates that the more this attitude is experienced by the therapist, the greater the probability that therapy will be successful. It is not, of course, possible to feel such an unconditional caring all of the time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

A therapist who is real will often have very different feelings, negative feelings toward the client. Hence it is not to be regarded as a “should,” that the therapist should have an unconditional optimistic regard for the client. It is simply a fact that unless this is a reasonably frequent ingredient in the relationship, constructive client change is less likely. What of the interpersonal politics of such an attitude? It is a powerful factor, but it is in no way manipulative or controlling in the relationship. There is no judgment or evaluation involved. Power over one’s own life is left completely in the hands of the client. It provides a nurturant atmosphere but not a forcing one. Another facilitative aspect of the relationship is empathic understanding. This means that the therapist senses accurately the feelings and personal meanings that are being experienced by the client and communicates this understanding to the client. At its best the therapist is so much inside the private World of the other that one can clarify not only the meanings of which the client is aware but even those just below the level of awareness. When the therapist responds at such a level of level the client’s reaction is of this sort: “Perhaps that is what I have been trying to say. I have not realized it, but yes, that is how I do feel!” This element of the relationship is perhaps the most easily improved through even brief training. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Therapists can learn, quite quickly, to be better, more sensitive listeners, more empathic. It is in part a skill as well as an attitude. To become more genuine or more caring, however, the therapist must change experientially, and this is slower and more complex process. Being empathic involves a choice on the part of the therapist as to what one will pay attention to, namely the inner World of the client as that individual perceives it. Thus it does change the interpersonal politics of the relationship. It in no way, however, exercises control over the client. On the contrary it assists the client in gaining a clearer understanding of, and hence a greater control over, one’s own World and one’s own behaviour. You may well ask why a person seeking help changes for the better when one is involved in a relationship with a therapist that contains these elements. Over the years I have come to see more and more clearly that the process of change in the client is a reciprocal of the attitudes of the therapist. As the client finds the therapist listening acceptingly to one’s feelings, one becomes able to listen acceptingly to oneself—to hear and accept the anger, the fear, the tenderness, the courage that is being experienced. As the client finds that therapist prizing and valuing even the hidden and awful aspects which have been expressed, one experiences a prizing and liking of oneself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

As the therapist is experienced as being real, the client is able to drop facades, to more openly be the experiencing within. Politically, by listening to the feelings within, the client reduces the power others have had in inculcating guilts and fears and inhibitions, and is slowly extending the understanding of, and control over, self. As the client is more acceptant of self, the possibility of being in command of self becomes greater and greater. The client possesses oneself to a degree that has never occurred before. The sense of power is growing. As the client becomes more self-aware, more self-acceptant, less defensive and more open, one finds at last some of the freedom to grow and change in the directions natural to the human organism. Life is not in one’s hands, to be lived as an individual. If there ever was a “man’s man,” it was Jonathan; and if there ever was a man who felt the need of a friend, I was Jonathan. The Philistines’ domination of Israel in that day was so complete that they allowed no blacksmiths in the land for fear they would make swords and spears for the Israelites. In fact, there were only two swords in the entire nation, those of King Saul and his son Jonathan. All Israel was in a dark storm of depression and despair—all, that is, expect Jonathan. Jonathan saw matters differently. He believed that if God willed it, Israel could be saved, even by a few. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

While others looked down, Jonathan looked up and saw a great and glorious God who could deliver hum anything He saw Fit. Armed with this conviction and his sword, Jonathan and his armour-bearer attacked a Philistine detachment alone. His sallying words say it all: “Come, let us go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few,” reports 1 Samuel 14.6. Assured that God would deliver them into his hand, Jonathan launched a horrifying single-handed attack. It was a mano a mano, hand-to-hand, man-to-man. Blood ran to the dust and white bone gleamed in the Sun as Jonathan sliced and hacked attacker after attacker, until twenty Philistine lay spread over a terrible half-acre. Blood-covered Jonathan was one tough Golden State Warrior! Jonathan’s heroics put some steel into his people, and a rebellion followed—and some good days for Israel. However, with Saul’s subsequent sin and rejection, Israel fell to even darker days than before (chapters 15-17), and Jonathan was more alone than ever. Even his greater heart was affected, as he too trembled before Goliath. There was no one of like mind, he thought—until he encountered David. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Jonathan could not believe his ears as David called out to the giant: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I will strike you down and cut off your head…and the whole World will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” (17.45-47). Then David ran full-speed at Goliath and nailed him right between the eyes! Blood-smeared David stood holding the great gory head, talking calmly with Jonathan’s father, Saul. At last Jonathan had found someone whose heart was in tune with his—a friend. What followed was the flowering of a deep male friendship, one of the most celebrated friendships in all of literature. As such, it provides the essential elements and wisdom for all genuine friendships. “Little children cannot repent; wherefore, it is awful wickedness to deny the pure mercies of God unto them, for they are all alive in him because of his mercy. And one that saith that little children need baptism denieth the mercies of Christ, and setteth at naught the atonement of one and the power of one’s redemption. Wo unto such, for they are in danger of death, hell, and an endless torment. I speak it boldly; God hath commanded me. Listen unto them and give heed, or they stand against you at the judgment-seat of Christ,” Moroni 8.19-21. #RandolpHarris 15 of 19

And thus, in the state of nature, one being comes by a power over another; but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when one has got one in one’s hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of one’s own will; but only to retribute to one, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to one’s transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one being may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares oneself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions of humans, for their mutual security; and so one becomes dangerous to humankind, the Simon clasp, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being slighted and broke by one. Which being a trespass against the whole species, and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every being upon this score, by the right one hath to preserve humankind in general, may restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such evil on anyone, who hath transgressed that law, as many make one repent the doing of it, and thereby deter one, and by one’s example of others, from doing the like mischief. And in the case, and upon this ground, EVERY PERSON HATH A RIGHT TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

I doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine to some people: but before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me, by what right any prince or state can put to death, or punish an alien, for any crimes one commits in their country. It is certain their laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the legislative, reach not a stranger: they speak not to one, nor, if they did, is one bound to hearken to them. The legislative authority, by which they are in force over the subjects of that commonwealth, hath no power over one. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France, or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the World, beings without authority: and therefore, if by the law of nature every being hath not a power to punish offenses against it, as one soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country; since, in reference to one, they can have no more power than what every being naturally may have over another. “Remember that The Maker knows all things, all that is past and present, all that has happened and will happen, and what might happen as well. Remember there is no past of future where The Maker is but only the vast present of all things living,” reports Anne Rice, Angel Time, page 132. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a being so far becomes degenerate, and declares oneself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other being receives damages by one’s transgression: in which case one who hath received any damages, has, besides the right of punishment common to one with other people, a particular right to seek reparation from one that has done it: and other person, who finds it just, may also join with one that is injured, and assist one in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm one has suffered. We beseech Thee, O Lord, in Thy compassion to increase Thy faith in us; because Thou wilt not deny the assistance of Thy loving-kindness to those whom Thou bestowest a stedfast belief in Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us, O Lord, we pray Thee, to trust in Thee will our heart; seeing that as Thou dost always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so Thou does not forsake those who make their boast of Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Confirm, O Lord, in our minds the mysteries of the true faith, that as we confess Him Who was conceived by the Virgin to be Very God and Man, so by the power of His saving Resurrection we may be enabled to attain eternal joy; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

O Divine Redeemer, great was thy goodness in undertaking my redemption, in consenting to be made sin for me, in conquering all my foes; great was thy strength in enduring the extremities of divine wrath, in taking away the load of my inequities; great was thy love in manifesting thyself alive, in showing thy sacred wounds, that every fear might vanish, and every doubt be removed; great was thy mercy in ascending to Heaven in being crowned and enthroned there to intercede for me, there to succour me in temptation, there to open the eternal book, there to receive me finally to thyself; great was thy wisdom in devising this means of salvation; bathe my soul in rich consolations of thy resurrection life; great was thy grace in commanding me to come hand in hand with thee to the Father, to be knit to Him eternally, to discover in him my rest, to find in him my peace, to behold His glory, to honour Him who is alone worthy; in giving me the Spirit as teacher, guide, power, that I may live repenting of sin, conquer Satan, find victory in life. When thou art absent all sorrows are here, when thou art present all blessings are mine. Be gracious to our prayers, O merciful God, and guard Thy people with loving protection; that they who confess Thine Only-begotten Son as God born in our bodily flesh, may never be corrupted by the deceits of the devil; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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Fools makes complaint that the Prophet brings to then this old message of the eternal Deity that wait to light all human heart and brings nothing new or fit for this age and hour. We may make a preamble to our answer with the statement that one indubitabtly gives such scientific and practical turn to one’s teachings as the time demands, but we must admi that one’s first and last words remain ever the same as the first and last words of all the illustrious divine teachers. For what other message can one give? When the soul hungers for a happiness it has hitherto been unable to find in its mudpits of sensuality or in its marketplaces of barter, is one to offer it a stone of some economic doctrine and not the bread of spiritual nourishment? Is one to come to confirm our self-deceptions and our self-govellings and to give the lie to the divine bliss one enjoys in the moment? One’s continual serenity, one’s unemotional manner may draw the admiration of the discerning few, but it will also provoke the exasperation of the undiscerning many.

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February 13, 2020 1:38 am

It is Not What Paris Gives You; it is What She Does Not Take Away!

What the World needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left. It is better to wear out than to rust out. One popular view of human nature stems from a religious perspective. This view of human nature uses the terms good and evil as representations of a religious philosophy. The idea that human nature can be inherently good assumes, essentially, that an individual’s action, based on an instinctual, inherent nature from a God, is appropriate and correct. In contrast, the idea that human nature can be inherently evil entails the belief that an individual’s actions, rooted in instinct and one’s human nature, will be self-serving, inappropriate, and outside the will of God. The idea that one’s inherent actions can be evil is a religious perspective and is rooted in the idea that humankind, apart from the direction of a higher power, acts within its evil nature. As stated in the Bible, in Romans 8.7, the “mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” A libertarian theory of justice is based in the understanding that human nature is inherently neutral and equal. Libertarian justice maintains that individuals should be free of constraint over their life, liberty, and property, all of which are equally essential to a system of justice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

All people are naturally in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature. Likewise, a contractarian theory of justice has some notions that human nature is inherently neutral. Contractarian theories hold that the primary principles in society are built upon the common will of the people in constructing a social contract, which promotes humankind’s equality, independence, and freedom. It is a feeling common to all humankind that they cannot bear to see others suffer. Humans are born free; and everywhere one is in chains, and the first law in the nature of humankind is to provide for one’s own preservation, one is the sole judge of the proper means of preserving oneself. Human nature is inherently self-interested. Egalitarianism holds that as human nature acts in its own self-preserving way, regulations are essential in guiding individuals and society. Egalitarianism views justice as common restrictions and investments in order to produce fairness and equity amongst the citizenry. It is the hope that shared responsibility and regulation will yield not only material liberty (as with the libertarians), but will also create psychological and spiritual liberty, because of the shared moral code that the community follows. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

The soul is produced by God and the self-interested person in nature is that of the brutes and is produced by some power of the body. Some philosophers believe that human nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short and the condition of humans is a condition of war of everyone against everyone. And that may be true about some individuals, but certainly not everyone. This view that human nature is inherently self-interested sets the foundation for a collective will to order and control the selfish behaviour of humans to protect the good of all. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all humans are created equal. This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.” reports President Abraham Lincoln. People should be allowed to have liberty and sovereignty and act in accordance with the rightness of their own nature. Humaneness and humanity are traits inherent in all and guiding all rational beings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

The abilities of humans which are not acquired by study are part of their endowment of good. However, it seems society is growing selfish and cutthroat. Can it be that as time goes on, the minds of humans are being produced to lack Humanity and Justice? If beings lose their sense of good, then they lose it as the mountain lost its trees. It has been hacked away at—day after day—what of its beauty then? Humankind must be granted their freedoms and liberties in order to act appropriately without certain constraints; however, society must be governed by a social contract, where humans may lose their natural liberty but will instead gain their civil liberty. This new sense of liberty, one that is embedded in a strong civility and citizenship, is influenced by Aristotle. The aspect of human nature that is so selfish must be regulated and controlled so as to not destroy humanity. Many people fear the brutish and warning nature of humans and want laws to protect them from disorder. Yet, they do not want absolutism in government as a means to regulate society for its optimal success because no one really knows what that means or if their lives will be consider worthy of the air they breathe. People do not want to be used by the government as soldiers, placeholders and taxpayers, and then disposed of so someone else can take their place. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

The human body is of the World, and if led by the World is corruptible; however, the human soul is of God and is based in the actions of love. When the nature of humanity as flesh and body is in opposition to God, thus humankind must be led by their soul, which is not corruptible. Church is in society to protect and empower individuals into Godly actions of their soul. Many men and women who are walking softly through life—and creating a revolution as they do so. Homemakers, teachers, interfaces between races and cultures, all of which have been drastically changed by persons who trust their own power, do not feel a need to have power over, and who are willing to foster and facilitate the latent strength in the other person are finding success. Power rests not in your mind but in your organism. You may think you are a slow leaner, but you are not. It could be that you are just now starting to realize your political impact. It is partly that a new concept has been in the process of construction in our language. It is not just a new label. It brings together a cluster of meanings into a powerful new concept. Politics, in present-day psychological and social usage, has to do with power and control: with the extent to which persons desire, attempt to obtain, possess, share, or surrender power and control over others and/or themselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Politics has to do with the maneuvers, the strategies and tactics, witting or unwitting, by which such power and control over one’s own life and others’ lives is sought and gained—or shared or relinquished. It has to do with the locus of decision-making power: who makes the decisions which, consciously or unconsciously, regulate or control the thoughts, feelings or behaviour of others or oneself. It has to do with the effects of these decisions and these strategies, whether proceeding from an individual or a group, whether aimed at gaining or relinquishing control upon the person oneself, upon others, and upon the various systems of society and its institutions. In sum it is the process of gaining, using, sharing or relinquishing power, control, decision-making. It is the process of the highly complex interactions and effects of these elements as they exist in relationships between persons, between a person and a group, or between groups. This new construct has had a powerful influence on me. It has caused me to take a fresh look at my professional life work. I have had a role in initiating the person-centered approach. This view developed first in counseling and psychotherapy, where it was known as client-centered, meaning a person seeking help was not treated as a dependent patient but as a responsible client. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Extended to education, client-centered therapy was called student-centered teaching. As it has move into a wide variety of fields, far from its point of origin—intensive groups, marriage, family relationships, administration, underrepresented groups, interracial, intercultural, and even international relationships—it seems best to adopt as broad a term as possible; person-centered. It is the psychological dynamics of this approach that has interested me—how it is seen by and how it affects the individual. I have been interested in observing this approach from a scientific and empirical point of view; what conditions make it possible for a person to change and develop, and what are the specific effects or outcomes of these conditions. However, I have never given careful consideration to the interpersonal politics set in motion by such an approach. Now I begin to see the revolutionary nature of those political forces. I have found myself compelled to reassess and reevaluate all my work. I wish to ask what are the political effects (in the new sense of political) of all that I, and my many colleagues throughout the World, have done and are doing. What is the impact of client-centered point of view on the issues of power and control in individual psychotherapy? We shall explore the politics of various approaches to helping people, whether through one-to-one therapy, or through encounter or other intensive groups. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

We shall confront openly a subject not often discussed: the issue of power and control in the so-called helping professions. This new approach in the politics of therapy differs from the older one in that it has a genuinely different goal. It aims directly toward the greater independence and integration of the individual rather than hoping that such results will accrue if the counselor assists in solving the problem. The individual and not the problem is the focus. The aim is not to solve one particular problem but to assist the individual to grow, so that one can cope with the present problem and with later problems in a better integrated fashion. If one can gain enough integration to handle one problem in more independent, more responsible, less confused, better organized ways, then one will also handle new problems in that manner. If this seems a little vague, it may be made more specific. It relies much more heavily on the individual drive toward growth, health, and adjustment. Therapy is not a matter of doing something to the individual, or of inducing one to do something about oneself. It is instead a matter of freeing one for normal growth and development, of removing obstacles so that one can again move forward. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

I have described various counseling techniques much in use—such as suggestions, advice, persuasion, and interpretation—and have pointed out that these rest on two basic assumptions: that the counselor knows best, and that one can find techniques by which to move one’s client most efficiently to the counselor-chosen goal. I see not that I have dealt a double-edged political blow. I have said that most counselors saw themselves as competent to control the lives of their clients. And I have advanced the view that it was preferable simply to free the client to become an independent, self-directing person. I am making it clear that is they agree with me, it would mean the complete disruption and reversal of their personal control in their counseling relationship. From the perspective of politics, power, and control, person-centered therapy is based on a premise which at first seemed risky and uncertain: a view of humans at their core a trustworthy organism. This base has over the years been strengthened by experience with troubled individuals, psychotic persons, small intensive groups, students in classes, and staff groups. It has become more and more firmly established as a basic stance, though each person must learn it step by step for oneself, to be convinced of its soundness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

I have recently described it as the gradually formed and tested hypothesis that the individual has within oneself vast resources for self-understanding, for altering one’s self-concept, one’s attitudes, and one’s self-directed behaviour—and that these resources can be tapped if only a definable climate of facilitative psychological attitudes can be provided. Is there any basis for this premise other than wishful thinking and the experience of a few people? I believe so. Biologists, neurophysiologists, and other scientists, including psychologists, have evidence that adds up to one conclusion. There is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities. There is a natural tendency toward complete development in a human. The term that has most often been used for this is the actualizing tendency, and it is present in all living organisms. It is the foundation on which the person-centered approach is built. The actualizing tendency can of course be thwarted, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism. I remember that in my boyhood the potato bin in which we stored our Winter supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small basement window. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The conditions were unfavorable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout—pale white sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the Spring. However, these sad, spindly sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the Spring. However, these sad, spindly sprouts would grow two or three feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. They were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency I have been describing. They would never become a plant, never mature, never fulfill their real potentiality. However, under the most adverse circumstances they were striving to become. Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with women and men on the back wards of state hospitals, I often think of these potato sprouts. So unfavorable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet the directional tendency in them is to be trusted. The clue to understanding their behaviour is that they are striving, in the only ways available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

To us the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life’s desperate attempt to become itself. It is this potent tendency which is the underlying bass of client-centered therapy and all that has grown out of it. I t is obvious that even this premise of client-centered therapy, without going further, has enormous political implications. Our educational system, our industrial and military organizations, and many other aspects of our culture take the view that the nature of the individual is such that one cannot be trusted—that one must be guided, instructed, rewarded, punished, and controlled by those who are wiser or higher in status. To be sure, we give lip service to a democratic philosophy in which all power is vested in the people, but this philosophy is honored more in the breach than in the observance. Hence simply describing the fundamental premise of client-centered therapy is to make a challenging political statement. What psychological climate makes possible is the release of the individual’s capacity for understanding and managing one’s life? There are three conditions for this growth-promoting climate, whether it is in the therapist and client relationship or parent and child, leader and group, teacher and students, administrator and staff—in fact, in any situation in which the development of the person is a goal. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Th first has to do with genuineness, realness—congruence. The more the therapist is oneself in the relationship, putting up no professional front or personal façade, the greater is the likelihood that the client will change and grow in a constructive manner. It means that the therapist is openly being the feelings and attitudes that are flowing within at the moment. The term transparent catches the flavor of this element—the therapist makes oneself transparent to the client; the client can see right through what the therapist is in the relationship; the client experiences no holding back on the part of the therapist. As for the therapist, what one is experiencing is available to awareness can be lived in the relationship, and can be communicated if appropriate. Thus there is a close matching, or congruence, between what is being experienced at the gut level, what is present in awareness, and what is expressed to the client. What does this mean in practical terms? It means that when the client is in pain or distress, the therapist is likely to be experiencing warmth or compassion or understanding. However, at other times in the relationship one may be experiencing boredom or anger or even fear of a destructive client. The more the therapist can be aware of—and can become and express these feelings, whether beneficial or negative—the more likely one is to be helpful to the client. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

It is the feelings and attitudes that are helpful when expressed, not opinions or judgments about the other. Thus the therapist cannot know that the client is a boring conversationalist or a demanding pig head or a beautiful person. All these are debatable point. The therapist can only be congruent and helpful in expressing the feelings one owns. To the extent that the therapist experiences, owns, knows, expresses what is going on within—to that extent one is likely to facilitate growth in the client. When Jesus says we must lose our lives if we are to find them, he is teaching, on the negative side, that we must not make ourselves and our survival the ultimate point of reference in our World—must not, in effect, treat ourselves as God should be treated, or treat ourselves as God. Thus Paul shockingly said, “Covetousness is idolatry,” reports Colossians 3.5. Is not that somewhat exaggerated? No. Covetousness is self-idolatry, for it makes my desires paramount. It means I would take what I want if I could. To defeat covetousness we learn to rejoice that others enjoy the benefits they do. To make my desires paramount is what Paul again described as having a flesh mind or mind of the flesh, which is a state of death (Romans 8.6). #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Such a mind “sows to one’s own flesh”—invests only in one’s natural self—and “out of that flesh reaps corruption,” reports Galatians 6.8. “Corruption” or “coming apart: is the natural end of the flesh. “Flesh” can only be preserved by being caught up within the higher life of the kingdom of God and thus of “losing” the life peculiar to it. In other worse, when Jesus says tat those who find their life or soul shall lose it, he is pointing out that those who think they are in control of their life—“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,” as the poet William Ernest Henley said—will find that they definitely are not in control: they are totally at the mercy of forces beyond them, and even within them. They are on a sure course to disintegration and powerlessness, of lostness both to themselves and to God. They must surrender. By contrast, if they give up the project of being ultimate point of reference in their life—of doing only what they want, of “sowing to the flesh” or to the natural aims and abilities of a human being—there can be hope. If they in that sense lose their life in favour of God’s life, or for the sake of Jesus and what he is doing on Earth—remember the ongoing World revolution he is now conducting—then their soul (life) will be preserved and thus given back to them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

There is still another valuable lesson to be learned from the parable of the generous landowner. God is not only generous, He is also sovereign. That is, God has the right to dispense His blessings as He chooses. Jesus asserts this prerogative of God very clearly with the landowner’s question: Do I not have the right to do what I want with my own money?” reports Matthew 2015. We constantly see believers around us who seem more blessed of God than we are. Some are more gifted in spiritual abilities, others always succeed with little effort, still others seem to have few problems or concerns, and on and on. Probably none of us is exempt from the temptation to envy someone else’s blessings and to secretly grumble at God, or even to charge Him with rank injustice, for giving that person more in some way then He has given us. Yet God in His sovereignty has the right to bless each of us as He chooses. Consider these words from the apostle Paul: But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? reports Romans 9.20-21. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Regardless of how we understand the particular application of Paul’s teaching, we cannot escape the basic principle in the passage: God is sovereign. And He is sovereign in every area of life. God as our Creator has the right to endow each of us at birth with different physical and mental abilities, with different temperament characteristics, and with different natural talents. He also has the right to give each of us different spiritual gifts. Not only does God have the right, it is obvious He exercises it. We are not created equal, nor are we given equal opportunities throughout life. Each of us has his or her own unique set of circumstances; those of some people being much more favourable than others. Since God is under no obligation to any of us, He is free to bless some more than others as He chooses. He has the right to do what he wants with His blessings. “For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must parish because one hath no baptism. Wo be unto them that shall pervert the ways of the Lord after this manner, for they shall perish except they repent. Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what humans can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear,” reports Moroni 8.15-16. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

O God, by Whose will all things were made, and by Whose truth they continue in being; we beseech Thee to keep us under Thy shelter, lest we be cast down from our chief happiness by the swellings of pride; grant us ever to ascend into Heaven by the steps of humility; and because Thou art the Fountain of life, from Thee may we drink what by faith we thirst for; in Thy light may we shine with the light of knowledge, and reap the fruit of righteousness in an everlasting exaltation. O God, Who art rich in forgiveness, and for this cause willedst to assume our lowly flesh, that Thou mightiest leave to us an example of humility, and make us steadfast in all manner of sufferings; grant that we may always hold fast the good things which we receive from Thee, and as often as we fall into sins, may be raised up by repentance; through Thy mercy. O God, I bless thee for the happy moment when I first saw thy law fulfilled in Christ, wrath appeased, death destroyed, sin forgiven, my soul saved. Ever since, thou hast been faithful to me; daily have I proved the power of Jesus’ blood, daily have I known the strength of the Spirit, my teacher, director, sanctifier. I want no other rock to build upon than that I have, desire no other hope than that of gospel truth, need no other look than that which gazes on the cross. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Forgive me if I have tried to add anything to the one foundation, if I have unconsciously relied upon my knowledge, experience, deeds, and not seen them as filthy rags, if I have attempted to complete what is perfect in Christ; may my cry be always, Only Jesus! Only Jesus! In him is freedom from condemnation, fullness in his righteousness, eternal vitality in his given life, indissoluble union in fellowship with him; in him I have all that I can hold; enlarge me to take in more. If I backslide, let me like Peter weep bitterly and return to him; give me strength enough to trust in him; if I am weak, may I faint upon his heart of eternal love; if in extremity, let me feel that he can deliver me; if driven to the verge of hope and to the pit of despair, grant me grace to fall into his arms. O God, hear me, do for me more than I ask, think, or dream. “And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation. For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity,” reports Moroni 8.17-18. The World is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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February 12, 2020 2:20 am

What Would You Trade Your Very Soul for?

A good sense of humor helps to overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerate the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected, and outlast the unbearable. In giving freedom to those enslaved, we assure freedom to the free—honourable alike in what we give and what we preserve. With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in. Some people work harder, some are stronger, some have more talent and skill, hence things are naturally unequal. People need to work together, to make and gather the fruits of uneven talents, and so society by its nature is a necessary and willing agreement to share unequally among unequals. If inequalities are greater in modern times, well, so are the fruits which most people can enjoy; greater, too, are the differences in skill, and so forth. If we shudder at the thought of total determinism of modern tyranny, we must admit that the conservative case has weight, especially since we today know fairly accurately how historical inequality came about—at least in a theoretical way. And we know that this process started long before the rise of the state: in fact, it was inherent in primitive societies themselves—even in the most eqalitarian ones, in hunting and gathering societies, the simplest known. These societies knew no distinctions of rank, little or no authority of one individual or the other. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

Primitive societies had very simple possessions and so there was no real difference in wealth; property was distributed equally. Yet even on this level individual differences were recognized and already formed the germ of social differentiation which would gradually lead to distinctions of rank, accumulated wealth, hereditary privilege, and the eventual rise and entrenchment of the exploitative state. It would seem that the largest factor in inequality among humans discourse. Two crucial factors are worth pointing out here. First, the basic fallacy: that there was a time in early social evolution when people were not influenced by differences in personal qualities. Some are able to maintain this because of a truly fantastic sketch of social evolution, in which one see a person at first as an isolated being, not even living in a family group. Gradually family life evolved, and then tribal life, and it was that time that each one began to look at the others and to want to be looked at oneself, and public esteem had value. This famous idea on the state of nature beings, then, with the epoch of the savage who lives within oneself. It ends when humans came out of this state into that of society; they became sociable beings, always outside oneself, who knew how to live only in the opinion of others. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

And so some believe that human’s downfall does not begin in the original state of humans, but it is the spirit of society alone, and the inequality it engenders, which thus changes and alters all our natural inclinations—that is, our natural solitariness, our natural immunity to the personal qualities of others. The second point of this fantasy is easier to understand because it is based on fact: one saw no accumulation of goods in the primitive societies of one’s time, and so one thought that primitive beings wanted only to live and remain idle and refused to work to build up an accumulation of goods. Accumulated goods in civilized society were a visible burden on those who slaved for them, and they were a direct cause of social injustice; and the primitive state was one of delightful laziness and freedom. However, we know this is the wrong conclusion: rather, hunters and gatherers cannot accumulate a surplus because of the primitive technology and subsistence economy, not because they do not want surplus. They are already eager to accumulate a surplus of wives and to gain special privileges for hunting lands, and so forth. The drive for self-expansion is there, but there are neither opportunities nor the World picture into which to fit it. Or, the state of nature is not idle, it is temperamental, orderly, and compulsive like all other human states. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

However, we have recently learned something from the vast collections of data on primitive beings: that if one was not in bondage to the authority of living persons, one was at the utter mercy of the power of spirits. Because of human’s fear of life and death, the tribe was in hock to the spirit of the dead. Or, if in some tribes humans did not seem to fear death, it was because they had transmuted this fear by immersing themselves in the group ideology, whatever it may have been. Now this lead us to a completely opposite position from what some anthropologists believed in the past, even on the fanciful sketch of social evolution: that is, in the state of nature the solitary individual is already unfree, even before one gets to society; one carries within oneself the bondage that one needs in order to live. We know today that this antiquated idea of the state of nature as an exploratory hypothesis to be able to imagine how life might be in a state of freedom from social coercion. We know too what a powerful critical tool this idea has been, and how it has helped us to highlight the state as a structure of domination from Marx all the way up to Mumford. However, the fact is that humans never were free and cannot be from their own nature as the starting point. Rare individuals may achieve freedom at the end of years of experience and effort; and they can do this best under conditions of advanced civilization. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

As we have seen, if it had the power to do so, each human type seeks to perpetuate itself; it tries to expand and aggrandize itself in the ways open to it. However, on primitive levels the power figures are always suspect precisely because of their dangerous power; hence the constant anxiety about witches and so forth. “Almost no mortal on Earth knows one’s lineage before the so called Dark Ages (500 to 1500 AD), and only the great families can penetrate the deep players of time to extract from them a series of examples that might inspire. But in every family there are bad people, and weak people, and some people who cannot or will not withstand the trials of life, and who fail spectacularly. Their guardian Angels weep; demons beholding them dance for joy,” Pages 62 and 61 of Angel Time by Anne Rice. The early tribal embodiments of magical power were ready scapegoats for the people—not only witches but priest-kings too. No wonder that when kings later got real power to work their will on the helpless masses, they used that power ruthlessly; in this perspective the divine king of the great slave state of the Mediterranean basin is the earlier shaman come of age and of unlimited power. We might say that instead of themselves being scapegoats, they used the entire people as their own sacrificial animals, marching them off to military holocaust at will. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

The logic of this kind of turning of the tables is almost inevitable. What each person wants is to be a survivor, to cheat death and to remain standing no matter how many others have fallen around one. In tribal society, if they can be, even at the expense of an occasional power figure who detaches oneself too much from the general level of safe mutuality and symbiosis, the people are the survivors. In the later tyrannical state, it was only natural that the king reverse this procedure—that he prove himself to be the survivor no matter how many of his people died, or even because they died. Seen in this way, history is the saga of working out of one’s problems on others—harmlessly when one has no power (or when the weapon is art), viciously when one has the power and when the weapons are the arsenals of the total state. This saga continues in modern times but in forms which disguise the same: individuals skilled in focusing power, and masses hungry for it and fearful of it. Each society elevates and rewards leaders who are talented at giving the masses heroic victory, expiation for guilt, relief of personal conflicts. It does not matter how these are achieved: magical religious ritual, magical booming stock markets, magical heroic fulfillment of five-year plans, or mana-charged military mega-machines—or all together. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

What counts is to give the people the self-expansion in righteousness that they need. The people who have power can exercise it through many different kinds of social and economic structures, but a universal psychological hunger underpins them all; it is this that locks people and power figure together in a life-and-death contract. This raises questions about the legal foundations of American society, abut what constitutes a threat to national security, and who should make that decision. “The War on Terrorism” has lead to the highest level of surveillance of our citizens. Many issues have been raised about social and economic justice, about the principles for the distribution of wealth, equal access to material goods. The 9.0 Earthquake in Japan in 2011, which led to the disasters at the nuclear power plants, and the Novel Coronavirus, which broke out in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019 and has killed more than 900 people and infected about 40,000 globally, Oroville Dam crisis of 2017, and the fire in Paradise, California which destroyed the entire town has led many raising issues about environmental justice, potential life-threatening issues concerning our relationship to the planet and our physical environment. What are the short term and long term consequences of our current practices, and who should make these determinations? How much power should they have? Should all countries have an equal voice? An equal vote? Who should make and enforce these rules? #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

The United States of America is one of the World leaders in disturbing statistics; rates of incarceration, rates of mass murder, serial murder, homicide and violent crimes, rates of divorce, child maltreatment and exploitation of pleasures of the flesh, rates of death by state executions, auto accidents, gun accidents, diabetes, heart problems, and number of people killed by medical interventions. We spend more of our money on defense than all of the rest of the nations of the World combined, and we have more guns overall and more hand guns in particular than anyone else, and yet research since 1956 shows a consistent decline in our sense of security. The Untied States leads the World in rates of mental disorders, mental illness, and chronic diseases, while at the same time seeing educational performance plummet over several decades. Behind each one of these statistics is a justice issue, a question about the fairness of our legal and cultural institutions, a question about how the relative wealth and poverty is distributed. Age-old questions of racial justice, economic justice, and gender justice are still with us today. Questions about justice originate from our religions. Experts estimate that there may have been as many as 2,000-4,000 religions in the past, but almost all of these were primal, tribal, and confined to small areas. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

Today we tend to think of religions as the so-called “World Religions,” those local and tribal perspectives which expanded beyond their native tribes and local areas, and in the more recent 6,000 years left some kind of historical record. Western civilization has been greatly influenced by the monotheistic religions of the Abrahamic traditions, those that trace their Worldly history back to the prophet Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Their holy and sacred texts (the Talmud, Bible, and Koran) contain many commentaries about mortality and justice, about how individuals should treat each other, and how rulers should act. These ancient texts have much to say about retribution and revenge, but relatively little to say about the complex social issues of our contemporary everyday life and globalized World. An ideal society should be a peaceful and harmonious social order, where the diverse interests and social classes would do their best to achieve a certain kind of functional interdependence, based upon their respective skills and roles. All institutions and all practices should be based on “Reason,” which means, a studied deliberation of the right thing to do in order to achieve the overarching goal of social harmony. The guardians, or leaders, should be selected, at a very early age, from among the aristocracy, separated from their parents, and trained for many years at the best schools, with the best teachers, before undergoing a lengthy apprenticeship of military and then political leadership. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

The guardians should be motivated by the highest ideals, and should not take any pay or compensation for their leadership. The political unit would ideally be the relatively small city-state, much less complex than contemporary nation-states throughout the World. Certain key ideas about human nature, which are asserted by theorist, commonly refer to assertions about what is universal or invariant among all peoples. Some theorists have a very dismal or negative view of human nature. Perhaps British philosopher Thomas Hobbes is the best exemplar of this negative view. Hobbes thought that human beings were very competitive, aggressive, and potentially violent with all of their fellow human beings, and with this reading of human nature he proposed a strong central state to control the potentially aggressive and unruly behaviours of its citizens. The eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau expresses a much different view of human nature, one founded on self-love and thus potential love for others, so he envisioned a more cooperative and less repressive state power to regulate the activities of citizens. So these highly abstract, or philosophical, ideas about human nature are embedded in the theorist’s concepts of the ideal, or just, society. Do human beings even have a nature? It is a loving and cooperative nature or a selfish, aggressive, and potentially violent one? #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Do men and women share the same “human nature”? Do people from different cultures have the same human nature? Do individuals have the same nature through the life cycle, or does one’s nature change from infancy to childhood to adolescence to young adulthood to parenthood to old age? What are the implications of human nature? Does it mean that a society or culture should be founded upon these ideas in such a manner so as to be consistent with them? Or does it mean that human nature is something to be changed by the society? Can all or part of human nature be changed by education? Many philosophers believe that education and political leadership are institutions that can lead all citizens to accept their proper role in a peaceful and harmonious social order. What do we owe other persons in our life, including friends, siblings, spouses, children, other family members, strangers, international visitors, and other community members? How are we to act toward these other individuals, and how should we regard them? Do we have an obligation to accept the values and moral norms of our own family-of-origin, which in some cultures might include killing a family member who challenged the “honor” of the family? Are we obligated to follow our own cultural laws and norms, even when these differ from more universal ideas about human rights? #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Should our behaviour be different in public settings (where people of different values, cultures, sexual preferences, religions, ethnicities come to do their common business) as opposed to private settings or situations? How should men act toward other men, women, and vice versa? How as should we act toward individuals who are members of historically oppressed or stigmatized groups? How should we express or regulate our emotions and the complex personhood with so many diverse and cross-cutting boundaries? These issues may not involve the larger issues of state and legal institutions, but they influence how we will experience our daily lives, and thus how we routinely experience justice or its opposite. What is the best type of government? Is democracy the best? Why? Should citizens have absolute rights which have to be legally protected by the states? If so, what right? What should happen to the state when they fail to protect the rights of the citizens? What are the prerogatives and limitations of government? What should be the laws, and how should these be decided? How should they be protected? How can they be changed? Who should be the leaders, and what should be their qualifications? What should be the appropriate span of the government for the national, state, regional, and local levels? #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Should the state protect the rights of underrepresented groups, or should there be rule by the majority? How much power should be given to regulate authorities? How should the government be involved in the promotion or regulation of private business activities? These re only a few of the many important questions and issues about governance, and we can see many others raised in the run-up to the 202 national elections. How can the origins of human nature be deconstructed in order to make sense of the World we live in? The most common debate around human nature is structured between two principles: first, that human nature is equal and neutral, without moral judgments; and second, that human nature is inherently self-interested. Human nature is a state of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal and each human has the liberty to dispose of one’s person or possessions; however, all of humankind is equal and independent, no one ought to hard life, healthy, liberty or possession because we are all the property of God. Humans have these for innate feelings, the feeling of distress (at the suffering of others) is the first sign of Humanity. This feeling of shame and disgrace is the first sign of Justice. This feeling of deference to others is the first sign of propriety. This sense of right and wrong is just the first sign of wisdom. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

There is a common liberty (which) results from the nature of humans…and all, being born free and equal, alienate their liberty only for their own advantage. For such a thing is nature of human, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves: for they see their own wit at hand, and other human’s at a distance. Human nature is a is humankind’s soul whereas the intellect apprehends existence absolutely, and for all time; so that everything that has an intellect naturally desires always to exist. However, natural desire cannot be in vain. Therefore, every intellectual substance is incorruptible. Self-denial is a term used to summarize the entire Christian life. Self-denial must never be confused with self-rejection; nor is it to be thought of as a painful and strenuous act, perhaps repeated from time to time against great internal resistance. It is, rather, an overall, settled condition of life in the kingdom of God, better described as “death to self.” In this and in this alone is possessed the key to the soul’s restoration. Christian spiritual formation rests on this indispensable foundation of death to self and cannot proceed except insofar as that foundation is being firmly laid and sustained. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

However, what is this self-denial or death to self, which goes hand in hard with restoration of the soul and eventually the whole person? At first it sounds like some dreadfully negative thing that aims to annihilate us. And frankly, from the point of view of the ruined soul, self-denial is and will always been every bit as brutal as it seems to most people on first approach. The ruined life about which most people complain so much anyway. “Those who have found their life (soul) shall lose it,” Jesus said, “while those who have lost their life (soul) for my sake shall find it,” reports Matthew 10.39. And again, “Whoever aims to save their life shall lose it, but whoever loses their life for my shake shall find it. For what have you gained by possessing the entire World if in the process you forfeit your life (soul)—lose yourself. What would you trade your very soul for?” reports Matthew 16.25-26, also Mark 8.35-36; Luke 9.24-25. We must always remember, in hearing these words of Jesus about the worth of the soul, that the art of the great teacher is to put things in ways you will remember even if you do not yet understand them. In that way you can keep working on them (and they on you) until you do understand them. Jesus is the master teacher of the human race, and he teaches accordingly. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

As we have, I think, an intuitive sense that he is right about the worth of the soul. A German soldier fighting in the trenches along France’s Marne river in World War I, where one million soldiers died on the Western front in 1914, wrote home: “What is the good of escaping all the bullet and shells if my soul is injured.” Some losses are so great that nothing on Earth can make recompense for them. “And after this manner did the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto me; wherefore, my beloved son, I know that it is solemn mockery before God, that ye should baptize little children. Behold I say unto you that this thing shall ye teach—repentance and baptism unto those who are accountable and capable of committing sin; yea, teach parents that they must repent and be baptized, and humble themselves as their little children, and they shall all be saved with their little children. And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins. However, little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the World; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!” reports Moroni 8.9-12. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Thou hast healed our wounds, O Lord, by the wounds of Thine Only-begotten Son. What then shall we do now that we have been bought with so great a price? how shall we serve such a Lord, by Whom liberty is promised and an inheritance is offered to us? Work in us, O Lord, what may please Thee; that we may possess Thee, do Thou possess us. We will not go back from Thee; Thou wilt let us live, and we will call upon Thy Name. My Father, I could never have sought my happiness in thy love, unless thou had’st first loved me. Thy Spirit has encouraged me by grace to seek thee, has made known to me thy reconciliation in Jesus, has taught me to believe it, has helped me to take thee for my God and portion. May he grant me to grow in the knowledge and experience of thy love, and walk in it all the way to glory. Blessed for ever be thy fatherly affection, which chose me to be one of thy children by faith in Jesus: I thank thee for giving me the desire to live as such. In Jesus, my brother, I have my new birth, every restraining power, every renewing grace. It is by thy Spirit I call thee Father, believe in thee, love thee; strengthen me inwardly for every purpose of my Christian life; let the Spirit continually reveal to me my interest in Christ, and open to me the riches of they love in him. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

By thy Spirit may I daily live to thee, rejoice in thy love, find it the same to me as to thy Son, and become rooted and grounded in it as a house on rock; I know but little—increase my knowledge of thy love in Jesus, keep me pressing forward for clearer discoveries of it, so that I may find its eternal fullness; magnify thy love to me according to its greatness, and not according to my deserts or prayers, and whatever increase thou givest, et it draw out greater love to thee. Deliver us from evil, and confirm us in Thy fear and in good works, O Trinity, our God, Who art blessed, and dost live, and govern all things, World without end. O God, Who by the prophet’s voice doest pronounce those blessed that fear Thee; grant us to render an acceptable obedience in Thy fear, and make us hence forth to walk in Thy ways; and let our work under Thy direction be pleasing in Thy sight, and its fruit be sweet in the day of reward. Almighty and everlasting God, Who resistest the proud, and givest grace to the humble; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may not exalt ourselves and provoke Thine indignation, but bow down and receive the gifts of Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. I hold that if the Almighty had ever made a set of people that should do all the eating and none of the work, He would have made them with mouths only and no hands. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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February 11, 2020 2:43 am

Believe Me, if All those Endearing Young Charms, which I Gaze on so Fondly To-day!

There is not a soul in the World whom Heaven does not regard in particular fashion. There is not a signor a word that Heaven fails to hear. People create these extravagant habitats because they have vision, love of beauty, hopes and dreams. If the line of reasoning I have been presenting is valid, then it opens new doors to us. If we frankly face the fact that science takes off from subjectively chose set of values, then we are free to select the values we wish to pursue. We are not limited to such stultifying goals as producing a controlled state of happiness, productivity, and the like. I would like to suggest a radically different alternative. Suppose we start with a set of ends, values, purposes, quite different from the type of goals we have been considering. Suppose we do this quite openly, setting them forth as a possible value choice to be accepted or rejected. Suppose we select a set of values which focuses on fluid elements of process, rather than static attributes. We might then value: Humans as a process of becoming; as a process of achieving worth and dignity through the development of one’s potentialities; the individual human being as a self-actualizing process, moving on to more challenging and enriching experiences; the process by which the individual creatively adapts to an ever new and changing World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

We may also value the process by which knowledge transcends itself, as for example the theory of relativity transcended Newtonian physics, itself to be transcended in some future day by a new perception. If we select values such as these we turn to our science and technology of behaviour with a very different set of questions. We will want to now such things as these: Can science assist us in the discovery of new modes of richly rewarding living? More meaningful and satisfying modes of interpersonal relationships? Can science inform us as to how the human race can become a more intelligent participant in its own evolution—its physical, psychological and social evolution? Can science inform us as to ways of releasing the creative capacity of individuals, which seem so necessary if we are to survive in this fantastically expanding atomic age? Dr. Oppenheimer has pointed out that knowledge, which used to double in millenia or centuries, now doubles in a generation or a decade. If we are to be able to adapt effectively, it appears that we will need to discover the utmost in release of creativity. Can science discover the methods by which humans can most readily become a continually developing and self-transcending process, in one’s behaviours, one’s thinking, one’s knowledge? Can science predict and release an essentially “unpredictable” freedom? #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

It is one of the virtues of science as a method that it is as able to advance and implement goals and purposes of this sort as it is to serve static values such as states of being well-informed, happy, obedient. Indeed we have some evidence of this. Psychotherapy can be one of the most subtle tools for the control of one person by another. The therapist can surely mold individuals in imitation of oneself. One can cause and individual to become a submissive and conforming being. When certain therapeutic principles are used in extreme fashion, we call it brain washing, an instance of the disintegration of the personality and a reformulation of the person along lines desired by the controlling individual. So the principles of therapy can be used as a most effective means of external control of human personality and behaviour. Can psychotherapy be anything else? Here I find the developments going on in client-centered psychotherapy an exciting hint of what a behavioural science can do in achieving the kinds of values I have stated. Quite aside from being somewhat new orientation in psychotherapy, this development has important implications regarding the relation of a behavioural science to the control of human behaviour. Let me describe our experience as it relates to the issues of the present discussion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

In client-centered therapy, we are deeply engaged in the prediction and influencing behaviour. As therapists we institute certain attitudinal conditions, and the client has relatively little voice in the establishment of these conditions. Very briefly we have found that the therapist is most effective if one is: genuine, integrated, transparently real in relationships; be acceptant of the client as a separate, different, person, and acceptant of each fluctuating aspect of the client as it comes to expression; and sensitively empathic in one’s understanding, seeing the World through the client’s eyes. Our research permits us to predict that if these attitudinal conditions are instituted or established, certain behavioural consequences will ensue. Putting it this way sounds as if we are again back in the familiar groove of being able to predict behavioural consequences as these: that the client will become more self-directing, less rigid, more open to the evidence of one’s senses, better organized and integrated, more similar to the ideal which one chosen for oneself. In other words we have established by external control conditions which we predict will be followed by internal control by the individual, in pursuit of internally chosen goals. We have set the conditions which predict various classes of behaviours—self-directing behavious, sensitivity to realities within and without, flexible adaptiveness –which are by their very nature unpredictable in their specifics. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

The conditions we have established predict behaviour which is essentially “free.” Our recent research indicates that our predictions are to a significant degree corroborated, and our commitment to the scientific method causes us to believe that more effective means of achieving these goals may be realized. Research exists in other fields—industry, education, group dynamics—which seems to support our own findings. I believe it may be conservatively stated that scientific progress has been made in identifying those conditions in an interpersonal relations which, if they exist in B, are followed in A by greater maturity in behaviour, less dependence upon others, an increase in expressiveness as a person, an increase in variability, flexibility and effectiveness of adaptation, an increase in self-responsibility and self-direction. And quite in contrast to the concern expressed by some we do not find that the creatively adaptive behaviour which results from such self-directed variability of expression is too chaotic or too fluid. Rather, the individual who is open to one’s experience, and self-directing, is harmonious, not chaotic, ingenious rather than random, as one orders one’s responses imaginatively toward the achievement of one’s own purposes. One’s creative actions are no more a chaotic accident than was Einstein’s development of the theory of relativity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

Thus we find ourselves in fundamental agreement with the statement that “Science has made its way by releasing, not by suppressing, the elements of variation, of invention and innovation, of novel creation in individuals. We have come to believe that progress in personal life and in group living is made in the same way, by releasing variation, freedom, creativity. There has been an interesting development in suburban architecture. Long gone are the days when homes all had verandas, with easy access to the front door, enabling one to become quickly acquainted with other in the neighbourhood. In 2020 we have architecture which speaks more directly to our current values. The most prominent part of a houses used to be the porch, but now the homes are getting larger. Inside are huge spa like bathrooms, plenty of room for delightful diversions—large living areas with fireplaces afford grand lounging; a dining room, cozy interludes. A fully functional kitchen, powder room, utility room, and even a master bedroom on the first floor. The second floor provides well-arranged sleeping quarters—with another large master bedroom—and two full bathrooms, walk-in closets larger than bedrooms some people grew up in. Do not forget the interesting mud room, the home hub and butler’s pantry. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

Modern architecture provides for privacy and entertainment as those are a priority today. The old adage that “a person’s house is one’s castle” is coming true today. One’s castle’s moat is one’s front lawn, the drawbridge is one’s driveway, and the portcullis one’s automatic garage door through which one passes with electronic heraldry. Once inside, one removes one’s armour and attends to house and hearth until daybreak, when one assumes one’s executive armament and, briefcase in hand, mounts one’s steed—perhaps a BMW i8 or a BMW X7—presses the button, and rides off to the wars. Today’s home reflects our modern values of individualism, isolation, and privatization. There is this cure in the air behind my body that nobody is going to touch a cloister, a silence closing around a blossom of fire. It is no longer usual to not even know the families immediately surrounding one’s own house! People do not want to get to know their neighbour’s intimately because they may not share the same values and want to stay on good terms with them. Even when the job does not force it, the average American family moves four times. People move from house to house looking for the elusive “something.” We lack roots, continuity, and community—all of which is to say that friendship, especially deep friendship, has fallen on hard times. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

America’s leading psychologist and therapists estimate that only 10 percent of all men have any real friends. The decade-long research of 5,000 men and women by Michael McGill, published in 1985, corroborates this. He reports: “To say that men have no intimate friends seems on the surface too harsh. However, the data indicates that it is not far from the truth. Even the most intimate of friendships (of which there are few) rarely approach the dept of disclosure a woman commonly has with many other women. Men do not value friendship.” Why is this? we wonder. We all know that men, by nature, are not as relational as women. Men’s friendships typically center around activities, while women’s revolve around sharing. Men do not reveal their feelings or weaknesses as readily as women. They gear themselves for the marketplace, and typically understand friendships as acquaintances made along the way, rather than as relationships. Also, if they have an obviously close friendship with another man, men fear being suspected of deviant behaviour. And, of course, there are some who suffer from the Hank Voight, from Chicago PD, delusion that “real men do not need other people.” Tragically, those who think this way rob themselves, their wives, their children, and the Church because they will never be all God wants them to be. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

Such thinking ignores the wisdom of both Scripture and life. Soon after Adam’s creation, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” reports Genesis 2.18. While this relates directly to the creation of Eve, it is also a primary ontological statement about the nature man, who is, whether he admits it or not, a relational being. His growth and significance are worked out in relationships. Christ is our example. His ministry was centered in deep friendships with the Twelve, whom He repeatedly called “friends” (John 15.13-15), and there was also the inner circle of three with whom He formed an even deeper friendship and to whom He bared His heart. Being a Christian is a relationship with the Triune God through Christ and with His Body, the Church. God becomes our Father; we become eternal brothers and sisters. Relationships! The warning to not “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” (Hebrews 10.15) was, and is, a call to relationships and friendships with other believers. Friendship is not optional. Men, if you are married, your wife must be your most intimate friend, but to say, “my wife is my best friend” can be a cop-out. You also need Christian male friends who have same-sex understanding of the serpentine passages of your heart, who will not only offer counsel and pray for you, but will also hold you accountable to your commitments and responsibilities when necessary. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

It is quite clear that the point of view I am expressing is in sharp contrast to the unusual conception of the relationship of the behavioural sciences to the control of human behaviour, previously mentioned. In order to make this contrast even more blunt, I will state this possibility in a form parallel to the steps which I described before. It is possible for us to choose to value a being as a self-actualizing process of becoming; to value creativity, and the process by which knowledge becomes self-transcending. We can proceed, by the methods of science, to discover the conditions which necessarily precede these processes, and through continuing experimentation, to discover better means of achieving these purposes. It is possible for individuals or groups to set these conditions, with a minimum of power or control. According to present knowledge, the only authority necessary is the authority to establish certain qualities of interpersonal relationship. Exposed to these conditions, present knowledge suggests that individuals become more self-responsible, make process in self-actualization, become more flexible, more unique and varied, more creatively adaptive. Thus such an initial choice would inaugurate the beginnings of a social system or subsystem in which values, knowledge, adaptive skills, and even the concept of science would be continually changing and self-transcending. The emphasis would be upon humans as a process of becoming. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

I believe it is clear that such a view as I have been describing does not lead to any definable Utopia. It would be impossible to predict its final outcome. It involves a step by step development, based upon a continuing subjective choice of purposes, which are implemented by the behavioural sciences. It is in the direction of the “open society,” as that term has been defined, where individual carry responsibility for personal decisions. It is at the opposite pole from the concept of a closed society, of which Walden Two would be an example. I trust it is also evident that the whole emphasis is upon process, not upon end states of being. I am suggesting that it is by choosing to value certain qualitative elements of the process of becoming, that we can find a pathway toward the open society. It is my hope that I have helped to clarify the range of choice which is possessed before us and our children in regard to the behavioural sciences. We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood. We can choose to utilize our scientific knowledge to make people necessarily happy, well-behaved, and productive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

We can, if we wish, choose to make men submissive, conforming, docile, Or at the other end of the spectrum of choice we can choose to use the behavioural sciences in ways which will free, not control; which will bring about constructive variability, not conformity; which will develop creativity, not contentment; which will facilitate each person in one’s self-directed process of becoming; which will assist individuals, groups, and even the concept of science, to become self-transcending in freshly adaptive ways of meeting life and its problems. The choice is up to us, and the human race being what it is, we are likely to stumble about, making at times some nearly disastrous value choices, and at other times highly constructive ones. If we choose to utilize our scientific knowledge to free people, then it will demand that we live openly and frankly with the great paradox of the behavioural sciences. We will recognize that behaviour, when examined scientifically, is surely best understood as determined by prior causation. This is the great fact of science. However, responsible personal choice, which is the most essential element in being a person, which is the core experience in psychotherapy, which exists prior to any scientific endeavour, is an equally prominent fact in our lives. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

We will have to live with the realization that to deny the reality of experience of responsible persona choice is as stultifying, as closed-minded, as to deny the possibility of a behavioural science. That these two important elements of our experience appear to be in contradiction has perhaps the same significance as the contradiction between the wave theory and the corpuscular theory of light, both of which can be shown to be true, even though incompatible. We cannot profitably deny our subjective life, any more than we can deny the objective description of that life. It is my contention that science cannot come into being without a personal choice of the values we wish to achieve. And these values we choose to implement will forever lie outside of the science which implements them; the goal we select, the purposes we wish to follow, must always be outside of the science which achieves them. To me this has the encouraging meaning that the human person, with one’s capacity of subjective choice, can and will always exist, separate from and prior to any of one’s scientific undertakings. Unless as individuals and groups we choose to relinquish our capacity of subjective choice, we will always remain free persons, not simply pawns of a self-created behavioural science. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

And the fact that God does not owe us anything, where does that leave us? It leaves us in the blessed position of being eleventh hour workers in God’s Kingdom. It leaves us going home at the end of the day from God’s vineyard profoundly grateful, knowing that the gracious landowner has been generous beyond all measure. In a word it leaves us content, and “Godliness with contentment is great gain,” reports 1 Timothy 6.6. Contentment with what we have—whether it is possessions, or station in life, or mental or physical abilities—is worth far, far more than all the things we do not have. A multimillionaire reportedly was once asked how much money was enough, to which he replied, “One dollar more.” The person who is living on the basis of merit is like the multimillionaire. One is never content. One day one thinks one is not being rewarded fairly by God; the next day one is afraid one has forfeited all hope for any reward. Far better to adopt the biblical attitude that grace does not depend on merit at all, but on the infinite goodness of God and His sovereign purpose for my life (a purpose God has already declared to be for my good) than rely on all the merit points I could ever possibly accumulate. We need to remember God has already been shown to be the exceedingly gracious and generous landowner. To realize that grace, all we must do is acknowledge we are no more than eleventh-hour workers. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

With this emphasis on contentment, I am not suggesting we should always be satisfied with the status quo in every area of our lives and not pray for or seek improvement. Remember, God by His nature is graciously disposed to give us all good things (Romans 8.32). However, for all of us, there are certain things that simply are not going to change. In those areas, we must learn to be content, always accepting the fact that God does not owe us something different. Frankly, I have had to struggle to learn this myself. God has given me a physical body that, in a number of ways, is less than average. He has given me spiritual gifts that are possessed largely outside the mainstream ministry of the organization He called me to serve with. Neither of these circumstances is going to change, so I have had to learn to be content with what God has given me. I have learned this by focusing on two facts; God does not own me anything, and what He has given me was given by His grace alone. “And now, I speak unto you concerning that which grieveth me exceedingly; for it grieveth me that there should disputations rise among you. For, if I heave learned the truth, there have been disputations among you concerning the baptism of your little children. And now, I desire that ye should labour diligently, that this gross error should be removed from among you; for, for this intent I have written this epistle,” reports Moroni 8.4-6. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

O Lord our God, Whose compassion is the first cause of our fearing and loving Thy Name, mercifully pour (Thy grace) into our hearts, that we, casting away what displeases Thee, may be untied to Thee with an honest will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, the Comforter of the humble, and the Strength of the faithful, be merciful to Thy suppliants; that human weakness, which by itself is prone to fall, may be evermore supported by Thee to stand upright; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty God, I am loved with everlasting love, clothed in eternal righteousness, my peace flowing like a river, my comforts many and large, my joy and triumph unutterable, my soul lively with a knowledge of salvation, my sense of justification unclouded. I have scarce anything to pray for; Jesus smiles upon my soul as a ray of Heaven and my supplications are swallowed up in praise. How sweet is the glorious doctrine of election when based upon thy word and wrought inwardly within the soul! I bless thee that thou wilt keep the sinner thou hast loved, and hast engaged that one will not forsake thee, else I would never get to Heaven. I wrong the work of grace in my heart if I deny my new nature and my eternal life. If Jesus were not my righteousness and redemption, I would sink into nethermost hell by my misdoings, shortcomings, unbelief, unlove; if Jesus were not by the power of his Spirit my sanctification there is no sin I should not commit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

O when shall I have this mind! When shall I be conformed to his image? All the good things of life are less than nothing when compared with his love, and with one glimpse of thy electing favour. All the treasures of a million Worlds could not make me richer, happier, more contented, for one’s unsearchable riches are mine. One moment of communion with him, one view of his grace, is ineffable, inestimable. But O God, I could not long after thy presence if I did not know the sweetness of it; and such I could not know except by the Spirit in my heart, nor love thee at all unless thou didst elect me, call me, adopt me, save me. I bless thee for the covenant of grace. O God, the Bestower of peace and the Lover of charity, grant to Thy servants a true agreement with Thy will, that we may be delivered from all the temptations which attack us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For immediately after I had learned these things of you I inquired of the Lord concerning the matter. And the word of the Lord came to me by the power of the Holy Ghost, saying: Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the World not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me,” reports Moroni 8.7-8. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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February 10, 2020 3:44 am

But Love is Blind, and Lovers Cannot See the Pretty Follies that themselves Commit!

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shine a good deed in a naughty World. Some scientists suggest that the tasks for the behavioural sciences is to make humans productive, well-behaved, and so forth, it is obvious that they are making a choice. One might have chosen to make humans submissive, dependent, and gregarious, for example. Yet by this stated objective of some scientists in another being’s capacity to choose, one freedom to select one’s course and to initiate action—these powers do not exist in the scientific picture of humans. Here is, I believe, the deep-seated contradiction, or paradox. Let me spell it out as clearly as I can. Science, to be sure, rests on the assumption that behaviour is caused—that a specified event is followed by a consequent event. Hence all is determined, nothing is free, choice is impossible. However, we must recall that science itself, and each specific scientific endeavour, each change of course in a scientific research, each interpretation of the meaning of a scientific finding and each decision as to how the finding shall be applied, rests upon a personal subjective choice. Thus science in general exists in the same paradoxical situation as do many scientists. A personal subjective choice made by humans that there can be no such thing as a personal subjective choice. I shall make some comments about this continuing paradox at a later point. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

I stressed the fact that each of these choices initiating or furthering the scientific venture, is a value choice. The scientist investigates this rather than that, because one feels the first investigation has more value for one. One chooses one method for one’s study rather than another because one values it more highly. One interprets one’s findings in one way rather than another because one believes the first way is closer to the truth, or more valid—in other words that it is closer to a criterion which one values. Now these value choices are never a part of the scientific venture itself. The value choices connected with a particular scientific enterprise always and necessarily are possessed outside of that enterprise. I wish to make it clear that I am not saying that values cannot be included as a subject of science. It is not true that science deals only with certain classes of facts and that these classes do not include values. It is a bit more complex than that, as a simple illustration or two may make clear. If I value knows of the “three R’s” (reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic) as a goal of education, the methods of science can give me increasingly accurate information as to how this goal may be achieved. If I value problem-solving ability as a goal of education, the scientific method can give me the same kind of help. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Now if I wish to determine whether problem-solving ability is “better” than knowledge of the three R’s, then scientific method can also study those two values, but only—and this is very important—only in term of some other value which I have subjectively chosen. I may value college success. Then I can determine whether problem-solving ability or knowledge of the three R’s is most closely associated with that value. I may value personal integration or vocational success or responsible citizenship. I may value personal integration or vocational success or responsible citizenship. I can determine whether problem-solving ability or knowledge of the three R’s is “better” for achieving any one of these values. However, the value or purpose which gives meaning to a particular scientific endeavour must always be possessed outside of the endeavour. Though our concern in these lectures is largely with applied science what I have been saying seems equally true of so-called pure science. In pure science the usual prior subjective value choice, and science can never say whether it is the best choice, save in the light of some other value. Geneticists in Russian, for example, had to make a subjective choice of whether it was better to pursue truth, or to discover facts which upheld strict and rigid government doctrines. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

Which choice is “better”? We could make a scientific investigation of those alternatives, but only in the light of some other subjectively chosen value. If, for example, we value the survival of a culture then we could begin to investigate with the methods of science the question as to whether pursuit of truth or support of governmental dogma is most closely associated with cultural survival. Any scientific endeavour, pure or applied, is carried on in the pursuit of a purpose or value which is subjectively chosen by persons. It is important that this choice be made explicit, since the particular value which is being sought can never be tested or evaluated, confirmed or denied, by the scientific endeavour to which it gives birth and meaning. The initial purpose or value always and necessarily is possessed outside the scope of the scientific effort which it sets in motion. Among other things this means that if we choose some particular goal or series of goals for human beings, and then set out on a large scale to control human behaviour to the end of achieving those goals, we are locked in the rigidity of our initial choice, because such a scientific endeavour can never transcend itself to select new goals. Only subjective human persons can do that. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Thus if we choose as our goal the state of happiness for human beings (a goal deservedly ridiculed by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World), and if we involved all of society in a successful scientific program by which people become happy, we would be locked in a colossal rigidity in which no one would be free to question this goal, because our scientific operations could not transcend themselves to question their guiding purposes. And without labouring this point, I would remark that colossal rigidity, whether in dinosaurs or dictatorships, has a very poor record of evolutionary survival. If, however, a part of our scheme is to set free some “planners” who do not have to be happy, who are not controlled, and who are therefore free to choose other values, his has several meanings. It means that the purpose we have chosen as our goal is not a sufficient and satisfying one for human beings, but must be supplemented. It also means that if it is necessary to set up an elite group which is free, then this shows all too clearly that the great majority are only the slaves—no matter by what high-sounding name we call them—of those who select the goals. Perhaps, however, the thought is that a continuing scientific endeavour will evolve its own goals; that the initial findings will alter the directions, and subsequent findings will alter them still further and that science somehow develops its own purposes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

This seems to be a view implicitly held by many scientists. It is surely a reasonable description, but it overlooks one element in this continuing development, which is that subjective personal choice enters in at every point at which the direction changes. The findings of a science, the results of an experiment, do not and never can tell us what next scientific to pursue. Even in the purest of science, the scientist must decide what the findings mean, and must subjectively choose what next step will be most profitable in the pursuit of one’s purpose. And if we are speaking of the application of scientific knowledge, then it is distressingly clear that the increasing scientific knowledge of the structure of the atom carries with it no necessary choice as to the purpose to which this knowledge will be put. This is a subjective personal choice which must be made by many individuals. Science has its meaning as the objective pursuit of a purpose which has been subjectively chosen by a person or persons. This purpose or value can never be investigated by particular scientific experiment or investigation to which it has given birth and meaning. Consequently, any discussion of the control of human beings by the behavioral sciences must first and most deeply concern itself with the subjectively chosen purposes which such an application of science is intended to implement. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

The neurotic’s fundamental attitudes toward others has acquainted us with two of the major ways in which one attempts to solve one’s conflicts or, more precisely, to dispose of them. One of these consists in repressing certain aspects of the personality and bringing their opposites to the fore; the other is to put such distance between oneself and one’s fellows that the conflicts are set out of operation. Both processes induce a feeling of unity that permits the individual to function, even if at considerable cost to oneself. A further attempt, here to be described, is the creation of an image of what the neurotic believes oneself to be, or of what at the time one feels one can or ought to be. Conscious or unconscious, the image is always in large degree removed from reality, though the influence it exerts on the person’s life is very real indeed. What is more, it is always flattering in character, as illustrated by a cartoon in the New Yorker in which a middle-aged woman, above average weight sees herself in the mirror as Paris Hilton, a slender young girl. The particular features of the image vary and are determined by the structure of the personality: beauty may be held to be outstanding, or power, intelligence, genius, saintliness, honesty, or what you will. Precisely to the extent that the image is unrealistic, it tends to make the person arrogant, in the original meaning of the words; for arrogance, though used synonymously with superciliousness, means to arrogate to oneself qualities that one does not have, or that one potentially but not factually. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

And the more unrealistic the image, the more it makes the person vulnerable and avid for outside affirmation and recognition. We do not need confirmation for qualities of which we are certain, but we will be extremely touchy when false claims are questioned. We can observe this idealized image at its most blatant in the grandiose notions of psychotics; but in principle its characteristics are the same in neurotics. It is less fantastic here, but it may be just as real to them. If we regard the degree of removal from reality as marking the difference between psychoses and neuroses, we may consider the idealized image as a bit of psychosis woven into the texture of neurosis. In all its essentials the idealized image is an unconscious phenomenon. Although one’s self-inflation may be most obvious even to an untrained observer, the neurotic is not aware that one is idealizing oneself. Nor does one know what a bizarre conglomeration of characters is assembled here. One may have a vague sense that one is making high demands upon oneself, but mistaking such perfectionist demands for genuine ideals one in no way questions their validity and is indeed rather proud of them. How can one’s creation affect one’s attitude toward oneself varies with the individual and depends largely on the focus of interest. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

If the neurotic’s interest is possessed in convincing oneself that one is one’s idealized image, one develops the belief that one is in fact the mastermind, the exquisite human being, whose very faults are divine. If the focus is on the realistic self which by comparison with the idealized image is highly despicable, self-derogatory criticism is in the foreground. Since the picture of the self that results from such disparagement is just as far removed from reality as is the idealized image, it could appropriately be called the despised image. If, finally, the focus is upon the discrepancy between the idealized image and the actual self, then all one is aware of and all we can observe are one’s incessant attempts to bridge the gap and whip oneself into perfection. In this event one keeps reiterating the word “should” with amazing frequency. One keeps telling us what one should have felt, thought, done. He is at bottom as convinced of one’s inherent perfection as the naively “narcissistic” person, and betrays it be the belief that one could be perfect if only one were more strict with oneself, more controlled, more alert, more circumspect. In contrast to authentic ideals, the idealized image has a static quality. It is not a goal toward whose attainment one strives but a fixed idea which one worships. Ideals have a dynamic quality; they arouse an incentive to approximate them; they are an indispensable and invaluable force for growth and development. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

The idealized image is a decided hindrance to growth because it either denies shortcomings or merely condemns them. Genuine ideals make for humility, the idealized image for arrogance. This phenomenon—however defined—has long been recognized. It is referred to in the philosophic writings of all times. Dr. Freud introduced it into the theory of neurosis, calling it by a variety of names: ego ideal, narcissism, superego. It forms the central thesis of Adler’s psychology, descried there as a striving for superiority. It would lead us to far afield to point out in detail the differences and similarities between these concepts and my own. Briefly, all of these are concerned only with one or another aspect of the idealized image, and fail to see the phenomenon as a whole. Hence despite pertinent comment and argument not only by Dr. Freud and Dr. Adler but by many other writers as well—among them Franz Alexander, Paul Federn, Bernard Glueck, and Ernest Jones—the full significance of the phenomenon and its functions has not been reorganized. What, then, are its functions? Apparently it fulfills vital needs. No matter how the various writers account for it theoretically, they are all agreed on the one point that it constitutes a stronghold of neurosis difficult to shake or even to weaken. Dr. Freud for one regarded a deeply ingrained “narcissistic” attitude as among the most serious obstacles to therapy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

There is instruction—verbal instruction, verbal warning. The word “instruction” literally means “to place before the mind. Often this means to confront and thus is related to the precious topic, discipline. This is precisely where the high priest Eli was such an abysmal domestic failure in raising his sons. First Samuel 3.11-13 reports to us: And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.” The Greek word for “restrain” in the Septuagint has the same root as “instruction” in Ephesians 6.4. Eli failed to confront his boys. He failed to instruct them about their sin. And because of this, they were destroyed. Clear, forthright instruction is necessary for proper upbringing. Men, if we are to own up to our responsibilities, we must be: Involved in verbally instructing children, regularly reading them in family devotions and prayer, monitoring and being responsible along with our wives for the input that enters their impressionable minds, taking responsibility to help assure that church is a meaningful experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

And above all, to be responsible fathers we must make sure that the open book of our lives—our example—demonstrates the reality of our instruction, for in watching us they will learn the most. The “do’s” of fathering—tenderness, discipline, and instruction—together demand one great thing, as a certain busy doctor came to realize. He would appear at meals, pay allowances, and give advice, often without really listening to the problems of his family before he spoke. One afternoon, as he was preparing an article for a respected journal of medicine, his little son crept into the forbidden sanctuary of his father’s study. “Daddy,” he appealed. Without speaking, the doctor opened his desk drawer and handed the boy a box of candy. A few moments later the boy again said, “Daddy,” and his father absent mindedly handed him a pencil. “Daddy,” the boy persisted. The doctor responded to this with a grunt, indicating he knew the boy was there but did not want to be bothered. “Daddy!” the body called out again. Angered, the busy doctor swung around in his chair and said, “What on Earth is so important that you insist on interrupting me? Can you not see I am busy? I have given you candy and a pencil. Now what do you want?” “Daddy, I want to hang out with you.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

The “do’s” of fatherhood cannot be lived out by proxy. You need to participate in putting your little ones to bed and praying for and with them. You need to be at their plays, speeches, recitals, and sporting events. You need to schedule regular time along with each of your children. You need to take the lead in planning terrific family vacations and in celebrating and cementing family solidarity. Now in mid-life I sometimes wistfully think, “Where did the time go between the two indelible memories of the birth of my daughter and the birth of her son?” To be honest, some of the years were long and hard. I thought we would never get through many of the stresses. However, when these great events are recalled in all their colour, there seems to be no time between them. That is why, whenever I have occasion to hold a baby in my arms, I often encourage the parents to savour every moment and not to rush through the experience—the child will be grown up and gone in no time. The realization that we have only a brief time to raise our children should give us huge motivation to make the most of it and should make Scriptural advice about fathering pulse with importance for us. Men, time is the chrysalis of eternity—there is no other time but the present. I realize we all go through periods in our lives when we have little time for our families—it is part of the natural rhythm of life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

However, excessive “busyness” must not be by choice—as it so often is! We must beware of packing our schedules by saying “yes” to things which mean “no” to our families. Now is the time to take time. There is no other! Will you do it? Will I? Men, we must evaluate our fatherhood. What does your heart tell you as you read these questions listed? Are you weak our strong? Do you criticize your children, or build them up? Are you overly strict, or reasonably strict—gradually granting your child greater freedom? Are you impatient and irritable, or patient and self-controlled, when dealing with your children? Are you consistent in your expectations? Have you kept you promises? Do you show favouritism? Are you tender with both your sons and daughters? Do you share in the discipline? Are you spending time with your children, as a family and individually? What awesome power we have! Our children all want the “aura and armament” of their fathers. Men, their hearts are turned to us! And our Lord wants our hearts to be turned to them. We hear this truth memorably stated by the Angel Gabriel when he announced that part of John the Baptist’s mission in making a people ready for the Lord was “to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,” reports Luke 1.17. Now that Christ has come, this is a perpetual result of His saving work. When a man truly gives his heart to Christ, it is turned toward his children. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

Men, submit to Christ—allow Him to turn your hearts to your children. Ask the Holy Spirit for the power to practice the discipline of fatherhood. Sweat for your children’s souls. We actually cannot give God anything that He has not first given to us. David recognized this fact when the leaders of Israel gave so generously for the building of the Temple. In his prayer of praise to God he said, “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. O Lord our God, as for all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name, it comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you,” reports 1 Chronicles 29.14, 16. David knew he and his people had not given anything to God that was not already His. Even our service to God comes from His hand. As the prophet Isaiah said, “LORD, all that we have accomplished you have done for us,” reports Isaiah 26.12. Paul summed up the whole question of what we have given to God rather conclusively when he said, “And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all humans life and breath and everything else,” reports Acts 17.25. When every breath we breathe is a gift from God there really is noting left to give that has not been first given. Almighty and everlasting God, convert us with our whole souls to Thyself; that as Thou vouchsafest such good gifts to the undeserving, Thou mayest bestow yet greater on the devout; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

Almighty and everlasting God, convert our minds, we beseech Thee, to deeds which shall be pleasing in Thy sight; that Thy rebuke may not prove, by our neglect, a greater cause of punishment, but, by our amendment, a Fatherly admonition; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, convert all our hearts unto Thyself, that we, abstaining from thing which offend Thee, may feel Thy mercy, and not Thy wrath; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “And now, my child, I speak onto you concerning that which grieveth me exceedingly; for it grieveth me that there should disputations rise among you. For if you have learned the truth, there have been disputations among you concerning the baptism of your little children. And now, my child, I desire that ye should labour diligently, that this gross error should be removed from among you; for this intent I have written this epistle,” Moroni 8.4-6. O Lord God, the first act of calling is by thy command in thy word, “Come unto me, return unto me”; the second is to let in light, so that I see that I am called particularly, and perceive the sweetness of the command as well as its truth, in regard to thy great love of the sinner, by inviting one to come, though vile, in regard to the end of the command, which is fellowship with thee, in regard to thy promise in the gospel, which is all of grace. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

Therefore, Lord, I need not search to see if I am elect, or loved, for if I turn thou wilt come to me; Christ has promised me fellowship if I take him, and the Spirit will pour himself out on me, abolishing sin and punishment, assuring me of strength to persevere. It is thy pleasure to help all that pray for grace, and come to thee for it. When my heart is unsavoury with sin, sorrow, darkness, hell only thy free grace can help me ac with deep abasement under a sense of unworthiness. Let me lament for forgetting daily to come to thee, and cleanse me from the deceit of bringing my heart to a duty because the act pleased me or appealed to reason. Grant that I may be salted with suffering, with every exactment tempered to my soul, every rod excellently filled to my back, to chastise, humble, break me. Let me not overlook the hand that holds the rod, as thou didst not let me forget the rod that fell on Christ, and drew me to him. O Eternal Father, convert our hearts unto Thyself; for nothing needful shall be lacking to those whom Thou shalt enabled to be devoted to Thy worship; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, Almighty God, look not upon the multitude of our wickedness; but draw away our weakness from sin, and guide the wills of Thy servants to what is right; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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February 8, 2020 1:51 am

God is Living and Large-Hearted Enough to Receive Us, Sins, Weaknesses, Foolishness and All!

Imagination was given to humans to compensate for what one dreams about. A sense of humour was provided to console us for our shortcomings. Behavioural science is clearly moving forward; the increasing power for control which it gives will be held by some one or some group; such an individual or group will surely choose the purposes or goals to be achieved; and most of us will then be increasingly controlled by means so subtle we will not even be aware of them as controls. Thus whether a council of wise psychologists (if this is not a contradiction in terms) or a Stalin or a Big Brother has the power, and whether the goal is happiness or productivity, or resolution of some complex, or submission, or love of Big Brother, we will inevitably find ourselves moving toward the chosen goals, and probably thinking that we ourselves desire it. Thus if this line of reasoning is correct, it appears that some form of completely controlled society—a Walden Two or a 1984—is coming. The fact that is would surely arrive piecemeal rather than all at once, does not greatly change the fundamental issues. Humans and their behaviour would become a planned product of a scientific society. You may well ask, “But what about individual freedom? What about the democratic concepts of the rights of the individual?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

The hypothesis that humans are not free is essential to the application of scientific method to the study of human behaviour. The free inner human who is held responsible for the behaviour of the external biological organism is only a pre-scientific substitute for the kinds of causes which are discovered in the course of a scientific analysis. All these alternative causes are possessed outside the individual. As the use of science increases, we are forced to accept the theoretical structure with which science represents its facts. The difficulty is that this structure is clearly at odds with the traditional democratic conception of humans. Every discovery of an event which has a part in shaping human’s behaviour seems to leave so much the less to be credited to the human being; and as such explanations become more and more comprehensive, the contribution which may be claimed by the individual oneself appears to approach zero. Human’s vaunted creative powers, one’s original accomplishments in art, science and morals, one’s capacity to choose and our right to hold one responsible for the consequences of one’s choice—none of these is conspicuous in this new self-portrait. Humans, we once believed, were free to express themselves in art, music and literature, to inquire into nature, to seek salvation in their own way. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

One could initiate action and make spontaneous and capricious changes of course. Under the most extreme duress some sort of choice remained to one. One could resist any effort to control one, though it might cost one one’s life. However, science insists that action is initiated by forces impinging upon the individual, and that caprice is only another name for behaviour for which we have not yet found a cause. The democratic philosophy of human nature and of government is seen as having served a useful purpose at one time. In rallying humans against tyranny it was necessary that the individual be strengthened, that one be taught that one had rights and could govern oneself. To give the common being a new conception of one’s worth, one’s dignity, and one’s power to save oneself, both here and hereafter, was often the only resource of the revolutionist. However, that philosophy is now out of date and indeed an obstacle if it prevents us from applying to human affairs the science of humans. That kind of World would destroy human persons as I have come to know them in the deepest moments of psychotherapy. In such moments I am in relationships with a person who is spontaneous, who is responsibly free, that is, aware of one’s freedom to choose who one will be, and aware also of the consequences of one’s choice. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

To believe, as some hold, that awareness is an illusion, and that spontaneity, freedom, responsibility, and choice have no real existence, would be impossible for me. I think that to the limit of my ability I have played my part in advancing the behavioural sciences, but if the result of my efforts and those of others is that humans become robots, created and controlled by a science of one’s own making, then I am very unhappy indeed. If the good life of the future consists in so conditioning individuals through the control of their environment, and through the control of the rewards they receive, that they will be inexorably productive, well-behaved, happy or whatever, then I want none of it. To me this is a pseudo-form of the good life which includes everything save that which makes it good. And so I ask myself, is there any flaw in the logic of this development? Is there any alternative view as to what the behavioural sciences might mean to the individual and to society? It seems to me that I perceive such a flaw, and that I can conceive of an alternative view. In addition to one’s permanent high evaluation of what one regards as freedom and independence, one may at some time in the analysis express an extreme appreciation for human goodness, sympathy, generosity, self-effacing sacrifice, and at another time swing to a complete jungle philosophy of callous self-interest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

If one has no clear perspective of the whole structure, the analyst will easily become confused. One may try to follow one path or the other without getting very far in either direction because again and again the patient takes refuge in one’s detachment, thereby shutting all the gateways as one would shut the watertight bulkheads of a ship. There is a perfect and simple logic underlying the special “resistance” of the detached person. One does not want to relate oneself to the analyst or to take cognizance of one as a human being. One does not really want to analyze one’s human relationships at all. One does not want to face one’s conflicts. And if we understand one’s premise, we see that one cannot even be interested in analyzing any of these factors. One’s premise is the conscious conviction that one need not bother about one’s relations with others so long as one keeps at a safe distance from them; that a disturbance in these relations will not upset one if only one keeps away from others; that even the conflicts of which the analyst speaks can and should be left dormant because they will only bother one; and that there is no need to straighten things out because one will not budge from one’s detachment anyway. As we have said, this unconscious reasoning is logically correct—up to a point. What one leaves out and for a long time refuses to recognize is that one cannot possibly grow and develop in a vacuum. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

The all-important function of neurotic detachment, then, is to keep major conflicts our of operation. It is the most radical and most effective of the defenses erected against them. One of the many neurotic ways of creating an artificial harmony, it is an attempt at solution through evasion. However, it is no true solution because the compulsive cravings for closeness as well as for aggressive domination, exploitation, and excelling remain, and they keep harassing if not paralyzing their carrier. Finally, no real inner peace or freedom can ever be attained as long as the contradictory sets of values continue to exist. To prosecutors and judges in our court system, as well as to people in ordinary situations of life, it still matters greatly whether wrongdoers show signs of remourse or seem to be truly sorry for what they have done. Why is that? It is because genuine remorse tells us something very deep about the individual. The person who can harm others and feel to remourse is, indeed, a different kind of person from the one who is sorry. There is little hope for genuine change in one who is without remourse, without the anguish of regret. Much of what is called Christian profession today involves no remourse or sorrow at all over who one is or even for what one has done. There is little awareness of being lost or of a radical evil in our hearts, bodies, and souls—which we must get away from and from which only God can deliver us. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

To manifest such awareness today would be regarded—and certainly by most Christians as well—as psychologically sick. It is common today to hear Christians talk of the “brokenness.” However, when you listen closely, you may discover that they are talking about their wounds, the things they have suffered, not about the evil that is in them. Few today have discovered that they have been disastrously wrong and that they cannot change or escape the consequences of it on their own. There is little sense of “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a person of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts,” reports Isiah 6.5. Yet, without this realization of our utter ruin and without the genuine revisioning and redirection of our lives, which that bitter realization naturally gives rise to, no clear path to inner transformation can be found. It is psychologically and spiritually impossible. We will steadfastly remain on the throne of our Universe, so far as we are concerned, perhaps trying to “use a little God” here and there. This will grow clearer as we look into the radical goodness of the renovated self. “And such were some of you; but were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God,” 1 Corinthians 6.11. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

One of the amazing things about the human being is that it is capable of restoration, and indeed of a restoration that makes it somehow more magnificent because it has been ruined. This is a hopeful but strange thought. How it is so should become clear as we proceed. However, for now we want to see clearly what goes on within the person who is “unruined,” as we might say. In particular, we must see what is the basic shift (given regeneration and forgiveness) that can lead to the reordering of the six universal dimension of the human self in subordination to God. The key to understanding the overall reordering is provided by what we learned about the human ruin. John Calvin, once again, remarked, “For as the Surest source of destruction to human is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. Let this, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God.” By service, I mean not only that which consists in verbal obedience, but that by which the mind divested of its own carnal feelings, implicitly obeys the call of the Spirit of God. This transformation (which Paul calls the renewing of the mind, Romans 12.2; Ephesians 4.23), though it is the first entrance of life, was unknown to all the philosophers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

They give the government of humans to reason alone…But Christian philosophy bids her give place, and yield complete submission to the Holy Spirit, so that the human oneself no longer lives, but Christ lives and reigns in him (Galatians 2.20). The concepts of love, power, and justice plays an important role in the description of ultimate reality. The element of power is used for the sake of fundamental characterization of being-as-being. In an ontological discussion of power like that in which we are engaged, it is necessary to understand the concept of power. The will to power is a designation of the dynamic self-affirmation of life. It is, like all concepts describing ultimate reality, both literal and metaphorical. The same is true of the meaning of power in the concept “will to power.” It is not the sociological function of power which is meant, although sociological power is included as tne of the manifestations of ontological power. Sociological power, namely the chance to carry through one’s will against social resistance, is not the content of the will to power. The latter is the drive of everything living to realize itself with increasing intensity and extensity. The will to power is not the will of humans to attain power of humans, but it is the self-affirmation of life in its self-transcending dynamics, overcoming internal and external resistance. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

In spite of our willingness to appreciate the expressive requirements of these several kinds of situations, we tend to see these situations as special cases; we tend to blind ourselves to the fact that everyday secular performances in our Anglo-American society must often pass a strict test of aptness, fitness, propriety, and decorum. Perhaps this blindness is partly due to the fact that as performers we are often more conscious of the standards which we might have applied to our activity but have not than of the standards we unthinkingly apply. In any case, as students we must be ready to examine the dissonance created by a misspelled word, or by a slip that is not quite concealed by a skirt; and we must be ready to appreciate why a near-sighted plumber, to protect the impression of rough strength that is de rigueur in one’s profession, feels it necessary to sweep one’s spectacles into one’s pocket when the housewife’s approach changes his work into a performance, or why a television repairman is advised by one’s public relations counsel that the screws one fails to put back into the set should be kept alongside one’s own so that the unreplaced parts will not give an improper impression. In other words, we must be prepared to see that the impression of reality fostered by a performance is a delicate, fragile thing that can be shattered by very minor mishaps. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The expressive coherence that is required in performances point out a crucial discrepancy between our all-too-human selves and out socialized selves. As human beings we are presumably creatures of variable impulses with moods and energies that change from one moment to the next. As characters put on for an audience, however, we must not be subject to ups and downs. We do not allow our higher social activity to follow in the trail of our bodily states, as our sensations and our general bodily consciousness do. A certain bureaucratization of the spirit is expected so that we can be relied upon to give a perfectly homogeneous performance at every appointed time. The socialization process not only transfigures, it fixes: But whether the visage we assume be a joyful or a sad one in adopting and emphasizing it we define our sovereign temper. Henceforth, so long as we continue under the spell of this self-knowledge, we do not merely live but act; we compose and play our chosen character, we wear the buskin of deliberation, we defend and idealize our passions, we encourage ourselves eloquently to be what we are, devoted or scornful or careless or austere; we soliloquize (before an imaginary audience) and we wrap ourselves gracefully in the mantle of out inalienable part. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

So draped, we solicit applause and expect to die amid a universal hush. We process to live up to the fine sentiment we have uttered, as we try to believe in the religion we profess. The greater our difficulties the greater our zeal. Under our published principles and plighted language we must assiduously hide all the inequalities of our moods and conduct, and this without hypocrisy, since our deliberate character is more truly ourself than the flux of our involuntary dreams. The portrait we paint in this way and exhibit as our true person may well be in the grand manner, with column and curtain and distant landscape and finger pointing to the terrestrial globe or to the Yorick-skull of philosophy; but if this style is native to us and our art is vital, the more it transmutes its model the deeper and truer art it will be. The severe bust of an archaic sculpture, scarcely humanizing the block, will express a spirit far more justly than the human’s dull morning looks or casual grimaces. Everyone who is sure of one’s mind, or proud of one’s office, or anxious about one’s duty assumes a tragic mask. One deputes it to be oneself and transfers to it almost all one’s vanity. While still alive and subject, like all existing things, to the undermining flux of one’s own substance, one has crystallized one’s soul into an idea, and more in pride than in sorrow one has offered up one’s life on the altar of the Muses. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Self-knowledge, like any art or science, renders its subject-matter in a new medium, the medium of ideas, in which it loses its old dimensions and its old place. Our terrestrial habits are transmuted by conscience into loyalties and duties, and we become “persons” or masks. Through social discipline, then, a mask of manner can be held in place from within. However, we are helped in keeping this pose by clamps that are tightened directly on the body, some hidden, some showing. Even if each person dresses in conformity with one’s status, a game is still being played: artifice, like art, belongs to the realm of the imaginary. It is not only that shirt, tie, hairstyle, and jacket disguise body and face; but that the lest sophisticated of people, once one is dressed, does not present oneself o observation; one is, like the picture or the statue, or the actor on the stage, an agent through whom is suggested someone not there that is, the character one represents, but is not. It is this identification with something unreal, fixed, perfect as the hero of a novel, as a portrait or a bust, that gratifies one; one strives to identify oneself with this figure and thus to seem to oneself to be stabilized, justified in one’s splendor. However, we can never obligate God by our obedience or our sacrificial service. Even if we were perfectly obedient in all our Christian duties, we would still be forced to say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty,” reports Luke 17.10. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Supposed you perfectly obey all the traffic laws of your state. You always stay within the speed limit, always come to a complete stop at stop signs, always drive in the proper lane, always use your turn signals—always obey every traffic rule. Do you receive any reward? Not at all, that is what you are supposed to do. You have only done your duty. You do not, by perfect obedience of the traffic laws, obligate the state to reward you in any manner. All you can say is, “I have only done my duty.” As the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, God has the right to require perfect obedience and faithful service from all of us without in the least obligating Himself. We own God such obedience and service. If we were to perfectly obey every command God has given and faithfully perform every duty—which, of course, we never do—we still could only say, “I have merely done my duty.” We cannot obligate God in any way. God Himself asserted His freedom from any obligation when He said to Job, “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under Heaven belongs to me,” reports Job 41.11. God was not stating a mere abstract, theological principle. He was rebuking an attitude of “I am no getting what I deserve,” on Job’s part. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Job, in defending himself against the false accusation of his so-called friends, had fallen from an attitude of grace into thinking he deserved better treatment from God. He had fallen from an attitude of “The LORD have and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the Lord me praised,” into an attitude of “It profits a man noting when he tries to please God,” reports Job 1.21, 34.9. Job had, over the time of his suffering, shifted from the position of an eleventh-hour worker to one who felt he had indeed “borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day,” reports Matthew 20.12. And God directly addressed Job’s attitude. If God were to deal with us today as He did with Job, I wonder how many of us would receive a similar rebuke? Through the inspired pen of the apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit again asserts His freedom from obligation to anyone when He says, “Who had ever given to God that God should replay him?” reports Romans 11.35. This assertation was not made in a vacuum. Paul had been dealing with the difficult question of the Jews’ future in the face of God’s apparent spurning of them in favour of the Gentiles. Regardless of how we understand Paul’s teaching about the Jews in Romans 9-11 (an issue on which many Christians disagree), the principle stated by the Holy Spirit through Paul is crystal clear: God does not owe anyone anything. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

There is a very high sense of entitlement within modern society. Older people feel entitled to certain benefits from society. Middle-aged people feel entitled to jobs with positions of authority and seniority. Younger adults feel entitled to immediately enjoy the same standard of living their parents too year to achieve. And young people feel entitled to whatever material luxuries they desire. Many observers of our culture are quite concerned about this pervasive sense of rights and expectations within our society as a whole. However, for Christians, such a high sense of entitlement is especially detrimental to our spiritual lives. For one thing, God is the ultimate supplier of all our needs and desires. Every good gift from God, regardless of the intermediate means through which that gift is supplied. As James said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows,” reports James 1.17. However, God, through His providential workings, almost always uses some person or institution or other human instrumentality to meet our needs. Ultimately, though, He is the One who provides or withholds what we desire or think we need. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Therefore, a high sense of entitlement and expectations, though seemingly directed toward some person or institution, is actually directed toward God and His providential dealings in our lives. If we do not receive what we think we have a right to expect, it is ultimately God who has withheld. More importantly, our sense of entitlement, which may be originally directed toward other people or institutions, is almost invariably transferred directly to God. We begin to be as demanding of our “rights” before God as we are toward people. It is bad enough, and certainly not very Christian, to have the attitude “The World owes me something just because I am,” but to have the attitude that God owes me something is exceedingly dangerous to spiritual health. It will ruin our relationship with God, nullify our effectiveness in ministry, and perhaps turn us bitter or resentful. Unlike our government, or school, or family, or employer, God will not give in to our sense of rights or respond to pressure tactics. We never win the battle of rights with God. He cares too much about our spiritual growth to let that happen. “I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end,” reports Moroni 8.3. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

O God, Who hast enkindled in the holy hearts of all Thy Saints so great an ardour of faith, that they despised all bodily pains, while hastening with all spiritual earnestness to Thee the Author of life; hear our prayers, and grant that the hateful sweetness of sin may wax faint in us, and we may glow with the infused warmth of love for Thee; through Thy mercy may we be inspired to go more deeply into ourselves during prayer, and feel an affinity and may the attraction of God persistently keep recurring to one. Holy Trinity, all praise to thee for electing me to salvation, by foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus; I adore the wonders of thy condescending love, marvel at the true believer’s high privilege within whom all Heaven comes to dwell, abiding in God and God in one; I believe it, help me experience it to the full. Continue to teach me that Christ’s righteousness satisfies justice and evidences thy love; help me to make use of it by faith as the ground of my peace and of thy favour and acceptance, so that I may live always near the cross. It is not feeling the Sprit that proves my saved state but the truth of what Christ did perfectly for me; all holiness in him is by faith made mine, as if I had done it; therefore I see the use of his righteousness, for satisfaction to divine justice and making me righteous. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

It is not inner sensation that makes Christ’s death mine for that may be delusion, being without the word, but his death apprehended by my faith, and so testified by word and Spirit. I bless thee for these lively exercises of faith, for the righteousness that is mine in Jesus, for grace to resign my will to thee; I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal, and I love to leave them there. Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and love thee. I want not the favour of humans to lean upon, for I know that thy electing grace is infinitely better. O Christ the Son of God, our great joy and everlasting gladness, Who after their bitter sufferings dost vouchsafe to Thy Saints the contemplation of Thy sweetness, so that pain and groaning have no more place among them; bestow now on us, through undeserving, the healing gift of comfort; that we who through our own fault have been far removed from Thee, may be gathered into the company of Thy Saints, and with them attain to infinite gladness; though they mercy we have found our Master and you are a powerful magnet. The blessing of peace and power we feel in God’s presence makes all our questions fade away because we sense his authenticity and spirituality. Humility is required to recognize that God’s wisdom is better than our own. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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February 7, 2020 2:02 am

All We Ask is to be Let Alone—God Made this Country and Humans Made this Town!

We do not lose our sense of humour when we get older—we get older when we lose our sense of humour. It is great to be great, but it is greater to be human. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove,” reports St. Matthew 17.20. Today I want to consider the question of how we—as individuals, as groups, as a culture—will live in, will respond to, will adapt to, this brave new World. What stance will we take in the face of these new developments? Deny and Ignore—one attitude which we can take is to deny that these scientific advances are taking place, and simply take the view that there can be no study of human behaviour which is truly scientific. We can hold that the human being cannot possibly take an objective attitude toward oneself, and that therefore no real science of behaviour can exist. We can say that humans are always a free agent, in some sense that makes scientific study of one’s behaviour impossible. Not long ago, at a conference on the social sciences, curiously enough, I heard a well known economist take just this view. And one of this country’s most noted theologians writes, “In any event, no scientific investigation of past behaviour can become the basis of predictions of future behaviour.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

This attitude of the general public is somewhat similar. Without necessarily denying the possibility of a behavioural science, the being in the street simply ignores the developments which are taking place. To be sure one becomes excited for a time when one hears it said that the Communists have attempted to change the soldiers they have captured, by means of “brainwashing.” One may show a mild reaction of annoyance to these revelations which show how heavily, and in what manipulative fashion, the findings of the behavioural sciences are used by modern industrial corporations. However, by and large one sees nothing in all this to be concerned about, any more than one did in the first theoretical statements that the atom could be split. We may, if we wish, join one in ignoring the problem. We may go further, like the antiquated intellectuals, and looking at the behavioural sciences may declare that “there ain’t no such being.” However, since these reactions do not seem particularly intelligent I shall leave them to describe a much more sophisticated and much more prevalent point of view. Among behavioural scientists it seems to be largely taken for granted that the findings of such science will be used in the prediction and control of human behaviour. Yet most psychologists and other scientists have given little thought to what this would mean. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

An exception to this general tendency is Dr. B.F. Skinner of Harvard who has been quite explicit in urging psychologists to use the powers of control which they have in the interest of creating a better World. In an attempt to show what he means Dr. Skinner wrote a book some years ago entitled Walden Two, in which he gives a fictional account of what he regards as a Utopian community in which the learnings of the behavioural sciences are fully utilized in all aspects of life—marriage, child rearing, ethical conduct, work, play, and artistic endeavour. There are also some writers of fiction who have seen the significance of the coming influence of the behavioural sciences. Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World, has given a horrifying picture of saccharine happiness in a scientifically managed World, against which humans eventually revolt. George Orwell, in 1984, in which the behavioural sciences are used as instruments of absolute control of individuals so that not behaviour alone but even thought is controlled. The writers of science fiction have also played a role in visualizing for us some of the possible developments in a World where behaviour and personality are as much the subject of science as chemical compounds or electrical impulses. I should like to try to present, as well as I can, a simplified picture of the cultural pattern which emerges if we endeavour to shape human life in terms of the behavioural sciences. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

There is first of all the recognition, almost the assumption, that scientific knowledge is the power to manipulate. We must accept the fact that some kind of control of human affairs is inevitable. We cannot use good sense in human affairs unless someone engages in the design and construction of environmental conditions which affect the behaviour of humans. Environmental changes have always been the condition for the improvement of cultural patterns, and we can hardly use the more effective methods of science without making changes on a grander scale…Sciences has turned up dangerous processes and materials before. To use the facts and techniques of a science of humans to the fullest extent without making some monstrous mistake will be difficult and obviously perilous. It is not time for self-deception, emotional indulgence, or the assumption of attitudes which are no longer useful. The next assumption is that such a power to control is to be used. It is seen as being used benevolently, though we recognize the danger of its being misused. Even if control is used with benevolent intent, it could actually create a nightmare. If such power of the behavioural sciences is used malignantly, the results will be that it will enhance the degree of regulation exercised by a dictatorial government. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Let us look at some of the elements which are involved in the concept of the control of human behaviour as mediated by the behavioural sciences. What would be the steps in the process by which a society might organize itself so as to formulate human life in terms of the science of humans? First would come the selection of goals. One possible goal is to be assigned to the behavioural technology is this: Let humans be happy, informed, skillful, well-behaved, and productive. Well, what do you say to the design of personalities? Would that interest you? The control of temperament? Give me the specifications, and I will give you the man! What do you say to the control of motivation, building the interests which will make humans most productive and most successful? Does that seem to you fantastic? Yet some of the techniques are available, and more can be worked out experimentally. Think of the possibilities! Let us control the lives of our children and see what we can make of them. What is essentially being said here is that the current knowledge in the behavioural sciences plus that which the future will bring, will enable us to specify, to a degree which today would seem incredible, the kind of behavioural and personality results which we wish to achieve. This is obviously both an opportunity and a very heavy burden. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

The second element in this process would be one which is familiar to every scientist who has worked in the field of applied science. Given the purpose, the goal, we proceed by the method of science—by controlled experimentation—to discover the means to these ends. If for example our present knowledge of the conditions which cause humans to be productive is limited, further investigation and experimentations would surely lead us to new knowledge in the field. And still further work will provide us with the knowledge of even more effective means. The method of science is self-correcting in thus arriving at increasingly effective ways of achieving the purpose we have selected. The third element in the control of human behaviour through the behavioural sciences involves the question of power. As the conditions or methods are discovered by which to achieve our goal, some person or group obtains the power to establish those conditions or use those methods. There has been too little recognition of the problem involved in this. To hope that the power being made available by the behavioural sciences will be exercised by the scientists, or by a benevolent group, seems to me a hope little support by either recent or distant history. It seems far more likely that behavioural scientists, holding their present attitudes, will be in the position of the rocket scientists specializing in guided missiles. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

First they worked devotedly for the aggressor to destroy Russia and the United States. Now depending on who captured them, they work devotedly for Russian in the interest of destroying the United States, or devotedly for the United States in the interest of destroying Russia. If behavioural scientists are concerned solely with advancing their science, it seems most probable that they will serve the purposes of whatever individual or group has the power. However, this is, in a sense a digression. The main point of this view is that some person or group will have and use the power to put into effect the methods which have been discovered for achieving the desired goal. The fourth step in this process whereby a society might formulate its life in terms of the behavioural sciences is the exposure of individuals to the methods and conditions mentioned. As individuals are exposed to the prescribed conditions this leads, with a high degree of probability, to the behavioural which has been desired. People then become productive, if that has been the goal, or submissive, or whatever it has been decided to make them. To give something of the flavour of this aspect of the process as seen by one of its advocates. Now that we know rewarding reinforcement works, and why negative does not, we can be more deliberate and hence more successful, in our cultural design. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That is the source of the tremendous power of using rewards as a way to reinforce behaviour you want—there is no restraint and no revolt. By a careful design, we control not the final behaviour, but the inclination to behave—the motives, the desires, the wishes. The curious thing is that in that cause the question of freedom never arises. The neurotic, in contrast to the psychotic, cannot help registering with painful accuracy all the thousand little incidents of real life which do not fit in with one’s conscious illusion. Consequently one wavers in one’s self-valuation between feeling great and feeling worthless. At any minute one may shift from one extreme to the other. At the same time that one feels most convinced of one’s exceptional value one may be astonished that anyone takes one seriously. Or at the same time that one feels miserable and down-trodden one may feel furious that anyone should think one in need of help. One’s sensitivity can be compared with that of a person who is sore all over one’s body and flinches at the slightest touch. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

One easily feels hurt, despised, neglected, slighted, and reacts with proportionate vindictive resentment. Here again we see a “vicious circle” at work. While grandiose ideas have a definite reassurance value and afford some support, even though only in an imaginary way, they not only reinforce the tendency to recoil, but through the medium of sensitivity create greater rage and thereby greater anxiety. This is, to be sure, the picture of severe neuroses, but in minor degrees it can also be seen in less serious cases, where it may not even be recognized by the person concerned. On the other hand, however, a sort of lucky circle may start as soon as the neurotic is able to do some constructive work. By this means one’s self-confidence grows, and there is thus less necessity for one’s grandiose ideas. The neurotic’s lack of success—one’s falling behind others in any respect, whether it concern career or marriage, security or happiness—makes one envious of others and thus reinforces the attitude of begrudging envy which has developed from other sources. Several factors may lead one to repress one’s begrudging attitude, factors such as inherent nobility of character, a deep conviction that one has no right to demand anything for oneself, or simply failure to recognise one’s existing unhappiness. However, the more it is repressed the more it may be projected on others, resulting in a sometimes almost paranoid fear that others begrudge one everything. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

If something goof happens to one, a new job, a flattering recognition, a fortunate acquisition, good fortune in a love-relationship, this anxiety may be so great that one feels absolutely uneasy. Hence it may greatly reinforce one’s tendencies to refrain from having anything or getting anywhere. Leaving out all details, the main outlines of the “vicious circle” which develops out of the neurotic striving for power, prestige and possession may roughly indicate as follows: anxiety, hostility, impaired self-esteem; striving for power and the like; enhanced hostility and anxiety; tendency to recoil from competition (with accompanying tendencies toward self-belittling); failures and discrepancies between potentialities and achievements; enhanced grandiose ideas (with fear of envy); enhanced sensitivity (with renewed tendency to recoil); enhanced hostility and anxiety, which starts the cycle all over again. In order, however, to understand fully the role hat envy plays in neuroses, we have to regard it from a more comprehensive viewpoint. The neurotic, whether or not feels it consciously, is not only a very unhappy person indeed, but one does not see any chance of escaping one’s misery. What the outside observer describes as vicious circles developing out of attempts to get reassurance, the neurotic oneself feels as being hopelessly caught in a net. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

As a patient of mine has described it, he feels tied up in a Brooklyn Basement with many doors, and whichever door he opens leads only into new darkness. And all the time he knows that others are walking outside in Sunshine. All because he was looking for love in all the wrong places and ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Family secrets are revealed and he learns blood is not always thicker than water! I do not believe that one can understand any severe neurosis without recognizing the paralyzing hopelessness which it contains. Some neurotic persons express their exasperation in no uncertain terms, but in others it is deeply covered by resignation or by a show of optimism. It may be difficult then to see that behind all the odd vanities, demands, hostilities, there is a human being who suffers, who feels excluded from all that makes life desirable, who knows that even if one gets what one wants one cannot enjoy it. When one recognizes the existence of all this hopelessness it should not be difficult to understand what appears to be an excessive aggressiveness or even meanness, unexplainable by the particular situation. A person so shut out from every possibility of happiness would have to be a veritable Angel if one did not feel hatred toward a World one cannot belong to. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

Coming back now to the problem of envy, this gradually developing hopelessness is the basis from which envy is constantly generated. It is not so much an envy of something special, but what is described as Lebensneid, a very general envy of everyone who feels more secure, more poised, more happy, more straightforward, more self-confident. If such a feeling of hopelessness has developed in a person, regardless of whether it is close to one’s awareness or far away, one will attempt to account for it. One does not see it—as the analytical observer does—as the outcome of an inexorable process. Instead one sees it as caused either by others or by oneself. Often one will blame both sources, though usually one or the other is in the foreground. When one puts the blame on others an accusatory attitude results, which may be directed toward fate in general, toward circumstances, or toward special persons: parents, teachers, husband, physician. Neurotic demands on others, as we have pointed out frequently, are to be understood largely from this point of view. It is as if the neurotic thought along these lines: “Since you are all responsible for my suffering, it is your duty to help me, and I have a right to expect it from you.” In so far as one seeks the source of evil in oneself, he feels that one has deserved one’s misery. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

Speaking of the neurotic’s tendency to put the blame on others may give rise to a misunderstanding. It may sound as if one’s accusations were unwarranted. As a matter of fact one has definite good reasons to feel accusatory, because one has indeed been dealt with unfairly, particularly in childhood. However, there are also neurotic elements in one’s accusations: they often take the place of constructive efforts toward beneficial goals and usually they are blind and indiscriminate. They may be directed, for example, toward persons who want to help one and at the same time one may be entirely incapable of feeling and expressing accusations against those persons who really injure one. When the floodtides of evil break across the television screen or wash the pages of print media in what is now called “news,” people roll their eyes helplessly and say, “Why?” They never say “Why?” when something good happens. However, they would if they ever faced up to the reality of the ruined soul. However, they simply cannot deal with the actual content of the human heart, mind, body, social context, and soul. In intellectual circles (and do not we all live there now?) evil, like sin, is a non-category. It is impolite and politically incorrect to speak seriously of it, even if it is the most tragic event that has ever taken place in modern history. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Some years ago a leading media personality had a high-level conference in Aspen, Colorado USA, on the topic of evil. (Should not that meeting have been held elsewhere? South Los Angeles or Sacramento?) The outcome was that one or two participants out of a large group thought that there was such a thing as evil. However, most were either noncommittal on the point or certain that evil did not exist at all. When you heard their comments it was clear that they simply could not conceptualize the evil to be seen flourishing abundantly around them in the twentieth century. One of the most glaring evidences of the bankruptcy of contemporary ethical thinking is that it cannot deal with evil. A recent proposal to found a field of “Evil Studies” within academia will not be enthusiastically received. We should be very sure that the ruined soul is not one who has missed examination at the end of life. Hell is not an “oops!” or a slip. One does not miss Heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. “Outer darkness” is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the Universe actually is. It is for those who are disastrously in error about their own life and their place before God and humans. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

The ruined soul must be willing to hear of and recognize its own ruin before it can find how to enter a different path, the path of eternal life that naturally leads into spiritual formation in Christlikeness. Spiritual formation is not something that may, or may not, be added to the gift of eternal life as an option. Rather, it is the path that the eternal kind of life “from above” naturally takes. It is the path one must be on if one is to be an eternal kind of life. It is not a project of life enhancement, where the life in question is the usual life of normal human beings—that is, life apart from God. It is, rather, the process of developing a different kind of life, the life of God himself, sustained by God as a new reality in those who have confidence that Jesus is the anointed One, the Son of God. “Believing in him we have life in his name,” reports John 20.31. Those “in Christ”—that is, caught up in his life, in what he is doing, by the inward gift of birth from above—“are of a new making. The ‘old stuff’ no longer matters. It is the new that counts,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.17. Here in this new creation is the radical goodness that alone can thoroughly renovate the heart. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which one hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons (and daughters) of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like hum, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as one is pure. Amen,” Moroni 7.48. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

Almighty and everlasting God, Who adornest the sacred body of Thy Church by the confessions of holy Martyrs; grant us, we pray Thee, that both by their doctrines and their pious example, we may follow after what is pleasing in Thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Mercifully give us, O Lord, an increasing of faith in Thee; that as it glorifies Thy holy Martyrs who held it fast even unto blood, it may also justify us who follow it in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that as we welcome with a temporary service the commemoration of Thy Saints, so we may rejoice in beholding them perpetually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God of my exodus, great was the joy of Israel’s sons, when Egypt died upon the shore, far greater the joy when the redeemer’s foe lay crushed in the dust. Jesus strides forth as the victor, conqueror of death, hell, and all opposing might; He bursts the bands f death, tramples the powers of darkness down, and lives for ever. He, my gracious surety, apprehended for payment of my debt, comes forth from the prison house of the grave free, and triumphant over sin, Satan, and death. Show me herein the proof that his vicarious offering is accepted, that the claims of justice are satisfied, that the devil’s sceptre is shivered, that one’s wrongful throne is levelled. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

Give me the assurance that in Christ I died, in him I rose, in his life I live, in his victory I triumph, in his ascension I shall be glorified. Adorable redeemer, thou who wast lifted up upon a cross art ascended to highest Heaven. Thou, who as Man of sorrows wast crowned with throns, art now as Lord of life wreathed with glory. Once, no shame more deep than thine, no agony more bitter, no death more cruel. Now, no exaltation more high, no life more glorious, no advocate more effective. Thou art in the triumph BMW M5 leading captive thine enemies behind thee. What more could be done than thou hast done! Thy death is my life, thy resurrection my peace, thy ascension my hope, thy prayers my comfort. Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that the examples of Thy Saints may stir us up to a better life, so that we who celebrate their solemnities, may also imitate their actions; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who permittest us to celebrate the commemoration of all Thy Saints, grant that we Thy servants may enjoy their fellowship in eternal gladness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everlasting God, Who dost enkindle the flame of Thy love in the hearts of the Saints, grant to our minds the same faith and power of love; that as we rejoice in their triumphs, we may profit by their examples; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, CA |

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.

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 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/

February 6, 2020 2:48 am

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