Home » Posts tagged 'holidays'
Tag Archives: holidays
At the Altar, in Front of God, You Promised to Love Me Forever!
With each of us, there is a process of change taking place from within. It requires no conscious effort. It is called growth. Goethe observes that, “Man is like a plant, he grows. He is not a sculpture, made from the outside.” Yet the emphasis of many parents, teachers and behaviourists has been on “shaping up,” molding from the outside. This is manipulation. One can manipulate from the outside, but growth comes from the inside. And the growth process requires surrender. From our earliest childhood, we are taught to do; we are taught that goals are more important than experience. How, then, can we change? I believe change occurs when we learn to trust our deepest feelings and discovery our natural rhythm. To trust our deepest feelings means to surrender to a growth process within ourselves. To discover our natural rhythm is to become one with the growth processes of nature: the seasons, the tides, the rhythm of each day and night. These two interlocking processes are inherent in the nature of life and are known as the “growing edge.” We see it in nature; always vitality seems to be nestling deep within the heart of a dying plant. A kind of oak tree comes to mind. You have seen it. The leaves turn yellow and die, but they stay on the tree all winter. The wind, the storm, the sleet, the snow, nothing is able to dislodge these dead leaves from the apparently dead branches. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
The business of the tree during the long winter is to hold on to these dead leaves. Then there begins to be a stirring deep within the heart of the tree. The expression of life reveals itself. Its function is no longer that of holding on to the dead leaves. It turns them loose. They fall off. In the place, buds begin to come. What wind, storm, hail, sleet, ice could not do during the long winter, now comes to pass very quietly because of the vitality inherent in the tree. In the growth of our lives, the same thing happens. As ten-year-olds, we know all things that happen to us are only the beginning. In our teen years, we know a new ripeness for many things, but also are aware that still other things will not be available to us under our twenties and thirties. Then in our thirties and forties, we must develop a new awareness that the wine of youth often grows turbid. The morning of life is for the development of the individual and for conquests: to do. The afternoon of life is for the development of wisdom: to be. The first quarter of life is when we are a problem for others. In the second and third quarters, conscious problems are ours. In extreme old age, we are again a problem for others. By the time of the third quarter, I believe we must make meaning and purpose paramount in order to live out our lives happily and healthily. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
In the past, we talked about a case study involving Trish. One of Trish’s problems revolved around the idea of commitment. To Trish, commitment is a feeling of conviction that a relationship will last through conflict and differences. Masters and Johnson (The Pleasure Bond) stress that there is a difference between a commitment of obligation and a commitment of concern. A commitment of obligation implies that you have to remain married because of your promise to do so; a commitment of concern implies, not that you feel compelled to meet the obligation but that you feel impelled to. By impelled, I mean that you have a conviction, deeply rooted in yourself, that comes from a core belief in the relationship. This strong belief gives rise to a feeling of confidence in the relationship and impels you to do what it takes to make it work, rather than abandoning it at the first sign of difficulty. Commitment then, is a feeling of confidence, not of obligation. From a logical standpoint, commitment as promise is impossible. Since all individuals are constantly changing, how can one logically promise to feel a certain way ten years from now? However, based on feelings of love and confidence, people can deeply believe in the process of maintaining a marriage through on-going resolution of conflicts. This requires facing the daily problems of life and trusting in the process of mutual sharing of feelings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
While it is ridiculous to say, “I promise to love you forever,” it is productive to say, “I love you now and I believe in this relationship. I commit to you that in the future I will do what it takes to make the relationship work, as long as we both shall love one another and want to be with one another.” Trish was so hung up on the promise, she refused to accept the possibility that her husband might want to leave her for good because she believed that it would destroy the marriage, and children. Also, because her husband made this promise to love her forever, at the altar, in front of God. Trish tried to make her husband feel differently than he did. However, with the help of therapy, she soon learned she could go nowhere with that. She eventually accepted his leaving, and he did not have to defend himself. This left him free to explore his reasons for leaving and perhaps his reasons for not leaving. The point is, is Trish’s husband is going to change, the change must come from within, not from Trish’s manipulation of him. If change comes, it will come out of just such a free, give-and-take atmosphere. However, Trish was only able to create this atmosphere by surrendering to the way things are. As a manipulator, Trish exaggerates her support at the expense of the opposite value, criticalness. Support and criticalness constitute a polarity such as the strength and weakness we often see in people struggling with life situations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
When a relationship is not working out and one person wants to make it work, that individual needs to become more judgelike, not in the legal sense, but in the sense that there is a nonlegal system of justice which will reward and punish their spouses’ actions regardless of what the person wanting the relationship to work out might do. The values of support and criticalness then synthesize into appreciation of differences, a value Trish can say, “I love our home and children and marriage, but I can see that you do not. I feel sorry for you. You are throwing away a good thing and you might regret it one day. Still, it is not up to me to make you regret it. It is up to me to live my life and it is up to you to live yours.” Notice that this surrender, when it comes, is a nonact. It does not involve doing anything. It just involved accepting the way things are and being with them. One day, Trish’s husband may indeed regret his decision. However, the regret will come from inside himself. And Trish will have accomplished what she wanted without doing anything at all, simply by surrendering to being. As of now, Trish’s situation is still unresolved. She was able to have a conversation with her husband similar to the last bit of role playing she did in therapy. They are not yet divorced, nor is he back with the family. Trish is more comfortable with the thought of a divorce now, though she still does not want it. She is continuing in therapy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Trish’s husband is wondering if leaving his family permanently is such a good idea after all. If he too joined a therapy group, Trish thought it might help. So far, her efforts in that direction have been in vain. However, she is not pressing it. There is danger that those who begin by being spiritually insensitive may end by becoming spiritually offensive. He should bestow an intellectual sympathy on all, even though he cannot bestow an emotional sympathy. If you can go to a man you greatly dislike and remember that he, too, will one day discover his spiritual identity and express a finer, more loveable self, it will be easier to be calm, patient, just, and at ease with him. The relationships which develop between him and other people become a further channel for expressing what he had of this understanding, this peace, this self-control. He cannot meet hatred with hatred, but only with resignation. His answer to enmity is to condone it. His attitude to opposition is to be tolerant. Those who are not deceived by the fictitious good-fellowship of saloons and taverns may find his calm cool presence more truly cordial than those who seek emotional displays. It is not a virtue but a weakness to be unable to stand up for your own rights or to be unable to rightly say “No!” or to submit to being bored by someone you want to get away from. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
His actions will affect those with him, his dislike or hatred may provoke theirs, his kindness may create kindly reactions from them. A man needs to be careful in such matters. It is not easy for any man who has the ideal of living by truth. He will find himself forced to talk little, to cultivate a reticent manner and follow hos own way of life. Bad-mannered children become so partly because of their parents’ failure to correct them, which may be through having has similar parents themselves. And where this is shown by the child pointing out and ridiculing a stranger, neighbour, schoolchild, or foreigner because of his different or unusual appearance, clothes, and so on, it is also cruel. Do not expect nobler actions or higher motives from any man than experience suggests you should expect. Crime, which is the law of nature, singularly fails to appear distinguishes. Lacenaire, the first of the gentleman criminals, exploits it effectively; Baudelaire displays less tenacity, but is a genius. He creates the garden of evil where crime figures only as one of the rarer species. Terror itself becomes an exquisite sensation and a collector’s item. “Not only would I be happy to be a victim, but I would even hate being an executioner in order to feel the revolution from both sides.” Even Baudelair’s conformity has the odor of crime. If he chose Maistre as his master, it is to the extent that this conservative goes to extremes and centers his doctrine on death and on the executioner. “The real saint,” Baudelaire pretends to think, “is he who flogs and kills people for their own good.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
His argument will be heard. A race of real saints is beginning to spread over the Earth for the purpose of confirming these curious conclusions about rebellion. However, Baudelaire, despite his satanic arsenal, his taste for Sade, his blasphemies, remains too much of a theologian to be a proper rebel. His real drama, which made him the greatest poet of his time, was something else. Baudelaire can be mentioned here only to the extent that he was the most profound theoretician of dandyism and gave definite form to one of the conclusions of romantic revolt. Romanticism demonstrates, in fact, that rebellion is part and parcel of dandyism: one of its objectives is appearances. In it conventional forms, dandyism admits a nostalgia for ethics. It is only honour degraded as a point of honour. However, at the same time it inaugurates an aesthetic which is still valid in out World, an aesthetic of solitary creators, who are obstinate rivals of a God they condemn. From romanticism onward, the artist’s task will not only be to create a World, or to exalt beauty for its own sake, but also to define an attitude. Thus, the artist becomes a model and offers himself as an example: art is his ethic. With him begins the age of the directors of conscious. When the dandies fail to commit suicide or do not go mad, they make a career and pursue prosperity. Even when, like Vigny, they exclaim that they are going to retire into silence, their silence is piercing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
However, at the very heart of romanticism, the sterility of this attitude becomes apparent to a few rebels who provide a transitional type between the eccentrics (or the Incredible) and our revolutionary adventurers. Between the times of the eighteenth-century, Byron and Shelley are already fighting, though only ostensibly, from freedom. They also expose themselves, but in another way. Rebellion gradually leaves the World of appearances for the World of action, where it will completely commit itself. The French students in 1830 and the Russian Decembrists will then appear as the purest incarnations of a rebellion which is at first solitary and which then tries, though sacrifice, to find the path to solidarity. However, inversely, the taste for the apocalypse and life of frenzy will reappear among present-day revolutionaries. The endless series of treason trials, the terrible game played out between the judge and the accused, the elaborate staging of cross-examinations, sometimes lead us to believe that there is a tragic resemblance to the old subterfuge by which the romantic rebel, in refusing to be what he was, provisionally condemned himself to a make-believe World in the desperate hope of achieving a more profound existence. Whoever cultivates goodwill to others will inevitably throw out whatever ill will he encounter in himself towards particular persons. For as goodwill grows in a broad generous way so ill will dies in a personal way. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Childhood illusions have mainly to do with rewards for being good and punishments for being bad. Good means mainly not being angry (“Temper, temper!) or sexy (“Nasty, nasty!) but it is all right to be frightened or ashamed. That is, Jeder is not supposed to express either his “instinct for self-preservation,” whose expression can be quite satisfying, or his “instinct for preservation of the species,” whose expression can be very pleasurable even at an early age; but he is allowed to have as many unsatisfying, unpleasant feelings as he wishes. There are many systems which make formal rules about rewards and punishments. Besides legal systems, which exist everywhere, there are religious and ideological ones. Half the World are “true believers” (about one billion Christians and half a billion Moslems) for whom the rules regarding afterlife are most important. The “heathen” half are judged during their earthly sojourns by local gods or by their national governments. For the script analysts, however, the most important codes are the informal, hidden ones which are peculiar to each family. For small children, there is usually some sort of Santa Clause who is watching their behaviour and keeping the accounts. However, he is for the “little kids,” and “big kids” do not believe in him, at least not in Santa Claus as a man in a masquerade costume who comes on a certain day of the year. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
In fact, not believing in that kind of Satan Clause is what separates big kids from the little ones, along with the knowledge of where babies come from. However, big kids, and grownups too, have their own versions of Santa, each one different. Some grownups are more interested in Santa Claus’s family than in Santa himself, and firmly believe that if they behave properly, they will sooner or later have their chance with either his son, Prince Charming, or his daughter Snegurotchka, the Snow-Maiden, or even with Missis, Mrs. Menopause. In fact, most people spend their lives waiting for Santa Claus, or for some member of his family. And then there is his opposite number down below. Where Santa himself is a jolly man in a red suit who comes from the North Pole brining gifts, his opposite number is a grim man in a black cloak who comes from the South Pole carrying a scythe, and his name is Death. Thus, the human race is split during later childhood into the Life Crowd, who will spend their lives waiting for Santa Claus, and the Death Crowd, who will spend their lives waiting for Death. These are the basic illusions on which all scripts are based: that either Santa Claus will some eventually bringing gifts for the winners, or Death will come eventually and solve all the problems for the losers. Thus, the first question to ask about illusions is: “Are you waiting for Santa Claus, or Death?” #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
However, before the Final Gift (immortality) or the Final Solution (death), there are meanwhile others. Santa can bestow a winning lottery ticket, a life pension, or prolonged youth. Death can bestow a permanent disability, a cessation of desire for pleasures of the flesh, or premature old age, each of which relieves the person of some of his duties. For example, women in the Death Crowd are convinced that menopause will offer succor and surcease: that all desires for pleasures of the flesh will vanish, to be replaced by hot flashes and melancholia which will excuse them forevermore from living. This sad myth, that Mrs. Menopause will rescue them, is living. This sad myth, that Mrs. Menopause will recuse them, is titled “Wooden Ovaries” in the language of script analysis. Some me also grab for this with “Wooden Testicles,” the myth of the male menopause. Every script is based on some such illusion, and it is the grievous but necessary task of script analysis to undermine it, hence the blunt titles which get this done with the most dispatch and the shortest pain. The transactional importance of the illusion is that it provides a cause, and a reason for saving up trading stamps. Thus, people who are waiting for Santa Claus will save either compliments to show how good they have been, or “suffers” of various kinds to arouse his compassion, while those who are waiting for death will save guilt or futility stamps to show that they are worthy of him or will welcome him with gratitude. However, any kind of stamp may be offered to either Santa Claus or Death in the hope that with clever salesmanship the desired merchandise will be forthcoming. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
The illusion, then, has to do with the store where the trading stamps are turned in, and there are two different stores, each with different rules. By doing enough good, or enduring enough suffer, Jeder can collect enough gold or brown stamps to turn in on a free gift from Santa’s Store. By collecting enough guilts or futilities, he can get a free gift from the Death Shop. Actually, Santa and Death do not actually run stores. They are more like itinerant peddlers. Jeder has to wait for Santa or Death to come, and he never knows when they will. That is why he must save his trading stamps and always have them ready, because if he misses his opportunity when Santa or Death does pass by, he never knows when he will get another chance. If he is saving cheerios, then he must think optimistically at all times, because if he relaxes even for a moment, that might be the very moment of Santa’s arrival. Similarly, if he is saving suffers, he must not risk every looking happy because if Santa catches him off guard, he will have lost his opportunity. It is the same people in the Death Crowd. They cannot afford to risk even a single moment free of guilt or futility, for that might be the very moment of Death’s visit, and then they would be condemned to live until the next round, which might be—well, only death knows how long the suspense might have to continue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
The notion of self-directed brain change did not exist in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was necessary to turn people on to this option. Evolutionary Agents were robot-programmed to perform this activation role, sending a futique signal to nervous systems. If they are ready for it, if the time is right and the signal is precise—ZAP! The new circuits will activate! People will open up like flowers in May—which is what happened in the 1960s. Remember this notion of bodily awareness was a predom-species concept in the 1950s. Before 1960 hive wisdom held that the body was an instrument designed for reproductive purposes. Sure, you were allowed to jump up and down on each other on Saturday night for breeding purposes—instinctual sperm-egg exchange. The notion of intelligent pleasure, hedonic engineering, bodily self-direction, didn’t exist. The notions of consciousness raising and body awareness and personal growth did not exist. Of course, you know what happened. Since the 1960s, the consciousness-pleasure hedonic-intelligence business has become the largest industry in the country. The Great American Consumer Society has co-opted the notion of “feel good.” And that is a step forward. Nothing is wrong with hedonic consumerism. It was bound to happen. It is a stage, of course. New ideas always get watered down and vulgarized. In every gene-pool, every caste is going to pick up on new energies. So, let us face the amusing fact. The self-directed pleasure business has become an American obsession. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
There is an enormous hedonic industry in this country which did not exist in the 1950s. We have water beds, satin sheets, diets, health foods, electric cars, stereo equipment, Internet, body shops, and more. We have yoga, massage, body building and martial arts. We have gurus, swamis and personal trainers. We have personal development and self-growth. Girl Scout Troops runs off twice a week to have consciousness raising episodes at the junior high school. Huge sums of money are involved. We spend more than $250,000,00—a quarter of a billion dollars annually—for the rolling papers and more than six billion for marijuana. For hundred million dollars are spent on jogging paraphernalia. The self-indulgent, self-improvement pleasure industry—entertainment, travel, recreation, sensual stimulation, aesthetics, style and fashion—is the largest business in America. The business of Uncle Sam has become self-actualization pleasure. There is no authoritative catalogue of emotional experience. Furthermore, there is precise differentiation of the physiological expression of emotion. Physiological psychologists have difficult naming the emotional experience that a person is undergoing when their only data are markings on a polygraph that depict alterations in autonomic nervous system activity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
In psychology’s earliest days, emotion was an awkward concept for behavioural scientists to define and accept. The effort tended toward minimizing the subject, considering it a part of the motivation process, and most of all, boiling down emotions to as few as possible. In 1919, Watson, the grand old man of behaviourism, suggested the existence of only three emotions in the infant—fear, joy, and lust. In the years following, the direction of the profession may be seen in that Bridges (1932) proposed just one response: undifferentiated excitement, a concept that matches the lack of differentiation in physiological symptomology characteristic of almost all emotions. Clinicians, counselors, and others who have dealt intimately with emotions and whose task it often is to help people understand their own emotional responses very accurately and specifically, do differentiate a far richer spectrum of emotions in the human. The complexity of emotions as seen by the humanists are numerous. Optimistic emotions include things like joy, ecstasy, pride, enchanted, warm-hearted, and more. Pessimistic emotions include feeling low, fear, lustful, anxiety and more. From time to time, humanists have pointed out that most psychology textbook, when they do give any space to emotions, concentrate largely on the negative emotions such as hate and depression. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to serve their community by preventing emergencies through education and inspection Minimizing injury, death, and property destruction due to fire, natural disaster and other emergencies while providing timely and effective emergency medical services. “In California we have what we call the Santa Ana winds, usually in August and September, where the winds come off the desert and bring a real dry heat all the way across the coast. I had my six-moth probationary test coming up, and I was studying all the time. I was with Engine X. This particular afternoon a young guy was flying a kite southeast of town and the kite caught on some high wires, causing an arc that jumped to the heavy brush and started a fire. So they dispatched the Forest Service and nearby unit, leaving us to protect our part of the city. We looked out our back door and watched the fire grow, we listened to the radio traffic, and finally we were dispatched. On the way to the fire, I was sitting in the jump seat behind the driver. The fire was in a hilly area, with roads winding around and up and down the hills, an awkward place to fight a fire. Our assignment was to go up this narrow little road. The second house on the left was on fire. A police lived there with his wife and two children. We couldn’t do much about the house. All we could do was make sure they got out. We did that. Then we went up to the next house. There were houses all over the place beginning to burn. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“With some difficulty we backed into the driveway next door. I was with Captain Y and Engineer Z. There was a Chevy pickup in the driveway and a great big eucalyptus tree in the back. We pulled off a 150-foot preconnect and went to fight the fire. The house was on the side of a bank. The lower part of the bank was covered with brush, and that was all burning. The upper part of the bank was also covered with brush, and that was all burning, and the big eucalyptus tree was on fire. I noticed the house was preheating, and white smoke was beginning to pump out of it. There wasn’t really any fire yet, but I knew it was about to burst. A very unusual thing happened to me at that point. I had been in forest fires before, and you normally have 21 percent oxygen in the air. But here the fire was so widespread around us that it was consuming the oxygen in the air and we couldn’t breathe. We had bandannas on our faces, but they were just filtering the smoke, not giving us oxygen. The captain and Z went across the lawn toward the house, and I lost track of them. I went back to the rig and grabbed a Scott air pack, and just about at that time the engine sucked an ember down the air intake, which burned the engine out, killed the pump, and prevented us from having any water. The hose in back of the truck was totally burned out, and I think the tires were, too. The three of us were in an open air oven. We had fire above us, below us and to the sides. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“We were in a little spot right in the middle of the backyard. I figured there were other people in the same situation or worse, and that we were basically on our own. Funny, but my main concern during this whole time was passing my probationary test. I was dedicated! So after I rejoined the other two, we all got into our fire tents. I think it was a miracle that we happened to be in a spot where there was a pocket of breathable air. I believe the Lord sent an angel down to protect us. There was so much fire around us. We shared the Scott pack, but it really wasn’t that important. One of the things that helped me was something I learned in the Forest Service, which is, always carry some chewing gum with you. It helps keep some of the moisture in your mouth, otherwise you get real dry, then you get smoke and embers in your eyes and it’s real uncomfortable. We lay beneath our tents then for about forty minutes and listened to the fire popping all around us. We also listened to the radio traffic to see if anybody has any emergencies as bad as we had, and in fact they didn’t. So we called for some help, for someone to come up to us. And Engine A and Squad A did try to come up to us. The driver of the engine got out, but the fire was so hot that he had to get right back in the engine. It was impossible for them to come through with hose lines and rescue us, because there was just too much fire and heat. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
Usually brush fires pass over fairly quickly, but there was a lot of heavy brush which burned for a longer while, and, of course, there were all the buildings on fire around us. I noticed afterwards that the windshield of the pickup truck was just a clump of glass. It has melted. While we were lying in our tents, we communicated with each other. We had the option of either staying where we were or taking a chance on running out through the brush and getting away. The captain convinced us that our best bet was to stay there, and so we did. There were other fire companies in similar situations, but their engines hadn’t burned out, so that when they opened up the nozzle and water came out, they could put their faces close to the nozzle and breathe the cooler air with oxygen in it. I kept lifting my tent and looking around. The heat only twenty feet from us was probably about 900 degrees, but to me the heat wasn’t the problem, it was the lack of oxygen. It was difficult to breathe. And then there was the house. I remember looking at the house one time, and then, about twenty minutes later, the entire house was gone. All that was left was the chimney. It was like jumping from one scene to another in a movie. It was amazing. While I was lying there, I thought, “If this is it, then this it is.” I’m not a quitter, but I knew that we were on our own and that nobody in the while area could do anything for us. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
“I figured there were probably people in worse situations than we were. I prayed. I have a strong faith, and I believe that the Lord provided a little pocket of oxygen for us to breathe, the fire consumed everything else. I knew that death was potentially nearby, as it is in a lot of the situations that we see. But I do appreciate life, and we all have a great concern for safety. Finally, after forty minutes or so, the fire had passed over and settled down a little bit. The guys from the bottom made another attempt to get to us, and they got the pump going, but they were still not able to reach us. The ones who did finally reach us came over the top from the other side of the hill. They knew we were still alive, because we had kept in radio contact and given them updates of our situation. When we got out, the fire was still going on. I would have stayed and gone through the whole thing, but during this time I had somehow cut my left eye. I don’t know how, but I had scratched the cornea pretty good, and it got to the point where it bothered me so bad, I couldn’t concentrate, and I couldn’t do anything to get relief for it. So they took me to the hospital, where they cleaned out my eyes, put in some medicine, and packed both of them. Actually they were more concerned about the black in my lungs. I had inhaled some smoke, which is common. So they cleared out the black stuff. I didn’t get to finish the whole fire. It stopped burning a couple of hours later, and that was it. History. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
“And to think that it all started from a little spark from a guy flying his kite! In all, that fire consumed 270 homes, and I don’t think any lives were lost!” The Sacramento Fire Department provides professional life safety, property protection, and disaster preparedness services. They achieve this through extensive fire prevention and safety education efforts, along with quick and effective responses to emergencies. You can save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, it is absolutely important to raise your children to love America and to be patriotic citizens. By loving God and Jesus Christ, we can keep America a cohesive country. By supporting our local businesses by buying American cars, and other goods and services produced by Americans, this will stimulate our economy and help produce more high paying jobs in America. It is also important to respect law and order. As God loving citizen, we make it a goal to treat our elders with dignity, care, reverence, patience and empathy so that we may continue to be blessed by God. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountain side let freedom ring. Our fathers’ God, to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee I sing; long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light; protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.” #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
Ventris Place
North Laguna Creek, CA | Mid 500’s
Now Selling!
Meet Ventris Place, a collection of 37 inspiring homes nestled just outside of Sacramento in the Elk Grove School District, and within walking distance to Cosumnes River College. Ventris Place offers premium California living with spacious floorplans and designer details you can’t find elsewhere. Expansive interiors offer room to entertain, live, and work from home.
Imagine waking up every day to the comfort of a life-made-easy home plan, private side yards, and inspired living spaces carefully designed to make life at home a pleasure. The open concept main floor boasts a great room, dining, and kitchen with gourmet features and entertainment island.
A covered patio off the kitchen brings outdoor living to life. The upstairs features a tucked away home management area and an open loft space. A large primary suite is your sanctuary, complete with dual large walk-in closets and spa bath.
Homes at Ventris Place offer 3-4 bedroom and 2-3 bath plans ranging from 1196 to 1846 square feet and include rear-entry 2-car garages. Choose from a single-story plan or several two-story plans.
Ventris Place homes are a place to breathe deep, sit back, and let life move just a little slower.
And when it’s time to get outside, the homes are adjacent to 22-acre North Laguna Creek Park, and a quick walk from the 119-acre designated Wildlife Area and Interpretive Trial. This intimate enclave of 37 homesites offers nostalgic charm and is available with one- and two-story floorplans. https://nextgenerationcapital.us/new-homes-elk-grove-ventris-place/
How is it that We Know So Much and Do Not Do Anything?
Many across the nation and the World currently face weighty challenges in their lives. In difficult periods of the past, leasers have recognized the collective need to give thanks amid turmoil and to turn to God. Living in thanksgiving daily is a habit that will enrich our lives and the lives of those we love. One of the most enduring and endearing of American images is the Thanksgiving holiday family dinner. The turkey, cranberry sauce, and the array of pies have attained nearly iconic status, and Norman Rockwell has provided a Saturday Evening Post fantasy of ordinary gratitude from which no one can escape and to which everyone aspires. Not for nothing is this the most heavily traveled day in the American calendar. Thanksgiving is the American holiday that embraces all that we value without stressing any of the things that make a public holiday problematic. Thanksgiving is a big deal in American because we American believe it to be our unique holiday, hardly found in this form anywhere else on Earth. And wherever on Earth Thanksgiving is celebrated, it is invariably associated with America and its founding virtues and values. Thanksgiving is a time when generations around the hearth and are renewed by generational proximity within. Shocks of corn and heaps of pumpkins decorate the fields and fill the barns as the strutting monarch of the farmyard, the fattened Thanksgiving turkey and prepared for the glorious meal. Pies are drawn steaming from ovens in stoves in which bubbling pots foretell the coming feast. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Following the Revolutionary War and ratification of the United States Constitution, President George Washington issued a proclamation designating Thursday, 26 November 1789, as an official holiday of “sincere and humble thanks” for God’s “care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation.” In October 1863, amid a bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln made the traditional Thanksgiving celebration a nationwide holiday to be commemorated each year on the fourth Thursday of November. President Lincoln’s proclamation enumerated the blessings of the country, then urged that those blessings “be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people.” He recommended that Americans “fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation.” As Thanksgiving is upon us, those who have homes and/or families are called to reflect on the good despite difficulty and division. Many Americans are facing the crisis of not being able to afford a home. They have worked hard and many of them are good people. They have a long, uphill battle ahead, and we pray that God shines down upon them and lets them know that he loves them and that every human soul is valuable. We pray that our Great Lord blesses them with a home where they can feel safe and be protected from the elements. We pray that every day, they can wake up and enjoy a hearty meal and know that they are loved. While there is much that is wrong in the World today, there are many things that are right and good. Our lives are blessed in countless ways. The things which provide deep and lasting happiness and gratitude are the things which money cannot buy: our families, the gospel, good friends, our health, our abilities and the love we receive from those around us. Unfortunately, these are some of the things we allow ourselves to take for granted. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
When we encounter challenges and problems in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings. However, if we reach deeply enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given. May we willingly serve one another. May we pray for the inspiration to know of the needs of those around us, and then may we go forward and help. Difficulties come into our lives, problems we do not anticipate and which we would never choose. None of us is immune. The purpose of mortality is to learn and to grow to become more like our Father, and it is often during the difficult times that we learn the most, as painful as the lessons may be. Our lives can also be filled with joy as we follow the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We hope that all people will see this Thanksgiving holiday as a time to express gratitude and to serve those around them. You are worthy of love every day. After a dangerous, frightening, and thoroughly uncomfortable 66-day voyage cooped up in the dark, dank, bowels of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims were immeasurably relieved to sight land on November 9. Following a fruitless attempt to continue to their original destinations at the mouth of the Hudson River, they decided to stay where they had ended up, in New England. They anchored in Cape Cod harbour (now Provincetown harbour) on November 11, 1620. As they were now outside the legal boundaries of their charter, some of the Strangers asserted that they were no longer obliged to live under the dominion of the “Saints” (as the Separatists commonly referred to themselves), but could strike out on their own. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the men of the party signed a momentous document called the Mayflower Compact that not only saved the colony by requiring all to live together under a government of their own making, but also introduced democratic principles of government to America and in time inspired the United States Constitution. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Following a month of exploration on Cap Cod, which included a brief, bloodless foray with the Indian inhabitants themselves as well as the discovery of vacant Indian homes, providential corn supplies (which they took but later paid back with interest), and graves, an exploring party arrived at what is now Plymouth. It was a dark and stormy December night of wind and sleet as the little shallop (a coastal craft brought over in pieces of the Mayflower and reconstructed on Cape Cod) approached the entrance to Plymouth harbour. Although both sail and rudder were lost in the storm, the boat entered the harbour and safely anchored. Its passengers found themselves on an island in the morning, and there they spent the weekend before crossing over to the mainland on Monday, December 11 (or December 21, by the New Style or Gregorian calendar), when they made the climatic landing on Plymouth Rock. The Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay a week later, and on Christmas Day (which the Separatists did not believe in), work began on the new village. There followed the terrible First Winter, during which all but a few persons suffered from exposure and disease, and half the Mayflower’s passengers and crew died. Nevertheless they persevered, and when spring came planted their first crops and built homes and storehouses. On March 16, a lone Indian entered the settlement and astonished the colonists by greeting them in English. This was Samoset, a Native Sagamore from Maine, who had learned the language from English fishermen who made annual voyages to the Maine coast each year. On March 22, he introduced them to another Native man, Squanto, who had once lived at Patuxet, the site of the new Plymouth settlement, before being kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery in Spain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Remarkably, Squanto had escaped and made his way to London, from where he returned to America as a scout for the Newfoundland Company. When he finally reached his old home, he found it abandoned—the result of a plague that had decimated the coastal population of southeastern New England. He, too, spoke English, and became the little colony’s translator, as well as its instructor in planting corn and finding local recourses. That same day, the “great Sagamore” Massasoit arrived with his retinue of sixty men, and with the help of the English-speaking Native men, entered a treaty of peace with the colonists that would last more than fifty years. The following autumn, the all-important corn harvest that would insure Plymouth Colony’s survival proved successful, although some of the English crops were a disappointment. In honour of this 1621 harvest, Edward Winslow noted that Governor William Bardford sent four men out to hunt wildfowl “so that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.” They brought back enough fowl to feed the community a week, including “many of the Indians [who came] amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men.” They hosted their guests for three days of feasting, to which the Indians contributed five deer. This ecumenical outdoor harvest feast and November celebration was America’s “First Thanksgiving”; it was later adopted by other New England colonies in memory of that momentous event. The holiday remained a regional observance until 1789, when George Washington declared the first nationwide Thanksgiving for the new Untied States (an earlier Thanksgiving for the thirteen colonies had been declared by the Continental Congress in 1777). The custom of national Thanksgiving lapsed after 1815, until Abraham Lincoln, urged on by Sarah Josepha Hale (editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and fervent advocate for a nation Thanksgiving holiday), declared a traditional November Thanksgiving in 1863. Since that time, the holiday the Pilgrims established has been celebrated without fail each fall, and the memory of that First Thanksgiving has been indelibly coloured by the famous images of colonists and Native neighbours sitting down to dine in autumnal splendour, surrounded with the bounty of the harvest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
If you will, think for a moment of someone you know who is truly happy. We have all met those people who seem to radiate happiness. They seem to smile more than others; they laugh more than others—just being around them makes us happier as well. Now think of someone you know who is not happy at all. Perhaps they seem ten years older than they are, drained of energy—perhaps they are angry or bitter or depressed. When is the difference between them? What are the characteristics that differentiate happy from the miserable? Is there something that unhappy people can do to be happier? It is time to stop when such a flexible all-things-to-all-men attitude begins to destroy strict honesty of purpose and truth of speech. No self-actualized Christian can stoop so low, but pseudo-Christians may. With each coming of this experience, there is a going of bitterness out of his heart. More and more he sees that people cannot help being what they are, the products of their own experience and present characteristics, the living milestones of a cosmic evolutionary process. How can he blame, resent, or condemn them? More and more, therefore, does tolerance suffuse his attitude and acceptance mellow his contacts with the World. The blood and violence, the fear and suffering associated with the production of meat, should be enough to make kindhearted, sensitive people shun it. In the sphere of human relations, he will hold himself to certain attitudes which eradicate the negative tendencies in him and stimulate the beneficial. When thrown among those who do wrong and practise evil, he will not fall into angry, hatred, resentment, or bitterness, but will use occasion to rise into patience, detachment, or indifference, knowing that such persons will sometime and somewhere infallibly receive the painful return of what they have given out. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
When, on the contrary, he is brought into the company of those who do right and practise virtue, he will rejoice in their goodness and be glad to witness their conduct. When he finds himself among those suffering misfortune, he will pity, and when among those enjoying good fortune, he will feel no envy. It is not possible for every man to establish harmony with every environment in which he finds himself, but it is possible for him to understand all environments so thoroughly as to react rightly to them. You must neither defraud your neighbour nor allow him to defraud you. If he must resist the influence and pressure of society in many directions to keep his spiritual integrity, he need not do so in an aggressive uncouth, or tactless manner. Some have unfortunately behaved in this way, not because philosophy bade them do so, but because their individuality was strong and their ego pronounced. Unless some quirk of destiny puts him in a public situation where duty and responsibility compel attention to negatives and criticisms, he may prefer to draw attention to the good and the beautiful, to spread harmony. So long as we let other people’s faults or blunders evoke our own in angry response, so long do we foolishly add an inner hurt to whatever outer hurt their fault or blunder may have caused us. Where harshness, coarseness, brutality, and vulgarity reign, where no touch of kindness, beauty, gentleness, or love enters the atmosphere, there the soul stifles. He is neither a sentimentalist nor a simpleton, but expects from humanity that dual nature, that thorn with the rose, which corresponds to the positive-negative nature of the universe itself. One may note these defects in a man’s character not to judge, certainly not to condemn him, but solely to understand any person with whom one must deal in some way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Good has existed in all countries, always, among bad people and at bad times. We ought to welcome them as people whatever low opinion we hold of their kindred. The idealist who expects too much from people is as mistaken as the cynic who expects too little. His tolerance is such that he accords to others the right to be, to act, and to live the way they want to be, to act, and to live. He trusts the evolutionary laws to take care of their corrective education. It is of the highest importance for older people to look after the manners of younger ones. However, the bad behaviour of many parents towards one another as well as in society is reflected in that of their children. Aggressive, naughty, ill-tempered, or disobedient traits in children need a measure of discipline from parents, or life will provide it in later years much more harshly. However, there is a special need for parents to provide it lovingly as education, not scolding and punishing. If we can give nothing else, we can always give others our kind thoughts and not our personal troubles. We are to cause no offense whatsoever to anyone. It is not always fair to scorn someone as a hypocrite for past frailties and lapses of the bygone past who behaves properly in the present. There may have been a genuine awakening accompanied by moral reform inwardly and outwardly, so that instead of condemnation, the attitude should be congratulation. His duty himself calls on him to protect the personal interests. However, his duty to the All calls on him to respect others’ interests too. There are rude and wild young people who assert that civilities and politeness intensify class divisions and status differences. They claim that in being wild and rude they are simply being natural and sincere whereas the others whom they denounce as holding bourgeois values are hypocritical and insincere. If the background of these misguided young persons is scrutinized, it will usually be found that at least three-quarters of them belong to working class origins while the others who are themselves probably of comfortable middle-class origin are pathological, mentally disturbed, emotionally upset persons. No, the courtesies of decent social intercourse are part of the proper evolution of humanity, and its refinement from the grossly animal to the truly human. This is an evolutionary advance. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Good breeding is a quality which must be acquired through the incarnations, for it is a quality of good Quality itself. Nobody knows, ultimately, what human beings need in order not merely to survive, but to prevail and to develop their full possibilities. Our most basic needs include the need to affirm life itself; physical gratifications; love, status, and self-esteem; freedom and space; challenge; prayer; cognitive clarity; meaning; variety and change; intimacy in solitude; and contact with nature. There may be more basic needs, and some of those mentioned, such as excitement, may not be essential to life itself, but they certainly make for a richer existence if they have been met. Prolonged deprivation may bring about a state of frustration, when a person loses contact with reality and may engage in destructive tension-reducing action. Aggression and regression are characteristic responses to frustration. Frustration thresholds are heightened by good health, recognition of meaning in life, and opportunities for release. Prolonged deprivation of basic needs can sicken a person through diminished resistance to infection, which is brought about by stress or dispiritedness. The healthy personality acknowledges dispiritedness in self when it occurs and seeks help. Needs and emotions that threaten a person’s self-esteem and sense of security may be repressed; they operate as unconscious influences upon action and experience. Such unconscious motives may appear in the content of dreams, in accidents and errors, in body postures, in forgetting of intentions and promises, and in certain projective tests of personality. The unconscious harbours one’s possibilities for achievement and growth as well as for action that is personally or socially reprehensible. Guilt can be a healthy indicator of something being wrong in one’s behaviour. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Once a person has gratified the basic needs, his or her energies and experience are liberated so that the person can turn to projects beyond basic need satisfaction, such as the pursuit of freedom, justice, beauty, or truth; in other words, B, or being motivation, including self-actualization. The problem is to find goals and projects that are challenging, fascinating, and that keep your mind free. Any choice of a meaningful commitment outside of self must include one’s free choice to change one’s mind. Psychological trading stamps follow the same pattern as commercial ones. They are usually obtained as a by-product of legitimate transactions. Marital arguments, for example, usually start over some actual problem, which is the “groceries.” While the Adult is carrying on its business, the Child is eagerly waiting to receive bonuses. People who collect psychological trading stamps have favourite “colours,” and if offered other colours, they may not bother to take them. A person who collects angers will let guilts and fears go by, or let someone else pick them up. In fact, in a soundly structured martial game, one spouse will pick up all the angers while the other picks up all the guilts or inadequacies, so that they both “win” and add to their collections. There are some people, however, who will collect any kind of trading stamps. These are starved for feelings and will play “Greenhouse,” happily showing off any kind of feeling that comes along. Psychologists are especially prone to pick up windblown feelings from the sidewalk, and if they are group therapists, to encourage their patients to do likewise. Some people go over their hurts and angers every night before going to sleep; others do it less frequently; while still others only do it when they are bored and have nothing better to do. Some wait until they need one big justification, and then count all their hurts and angers in the hope that they have enough to warrant an outburst of anger, a “free” sulk, or some other dramatic emotional display. Some people like to save them and some like to spend them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
People like to show their collections of feelings to others, and to talk about who has more or better angers, hurts, guilts, fears, et cetera. In fact, many saloons become showrooms where people can go to boast about their trading stamps: “You think your wife is unreasonable—well, list to this!” or “I know what you mean. It takes even less than that to hurt (scare) me. Yesterday…” or “Embarrassed (guilty, inadequate)? I coulda sunk through the floor!” The “store” where psychological trading stamps are redeemed has the same array of prizes as the commercial trading stamp center: little ones, bigger ones, and really big ones. For one or two “books” the person can get a small prize, such as a free (“justified”) drunk or fantasy involving pleasures of the flesh; for ten “books” he can get a toy (unsuccessful) suicide or an adultery, and for one hundred “books” he can get one of the big ones: a free quit (divorce, leave treatment, quit job), a free go to the mental hospital (colloquially known as a free crazy), a free suicide, or a free homicide. Some people learn that psychological trading stamps are not really free, and that the collected feelings have to be paid for in loneliness, insomnia, raised blood pressure, or stomach trouble, so they stop collecting them. Others never do learn about this. Some know it, but continue to play games and collect payoffs because otherwise their lives would be too drab; since they feel little justification for their way of living, they have to content themselves with collecting small justifications for small outbursts of vitality. Some people prefer to talk straight rather than play games: that is, they will not act provocatively in order to get trading stamps, and will refuse to respond to the spurious provocative behaviour of others. With the energy thus saved, they are ready when they meet the right person at the right time in the right place for more legitimate expressions of feelings. In some cases, people collect psychological trading stamps painlessly and someone else pays the price. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Thus, a criminal may enjoy all the pleasures of robbing a bank without feeling bad about it or getting caught; apparently, is they do not get too greedy and push too hard, some professional confidence men and card sharps can live very happily in this way. Some teenagers enjoy dismaying their elders without feeling any remorse or other ill effects. However, in principle, the person who collects trading stamps usually must pay for them sooner or later. Some people, particularly paranoids, collect “counterfeit” trading stamps. If no one will provoke them, they imagine provocations. Then, if they are impatient, they can get a free suicide or a free homicide without having to rely on the natural course of events to supply enough irritations for a legitimate outburst. In this respect, there are two types of paranoids. The Child paranoid collects counterfeit wrongs and says, “See what they did to me,” while the Parent paranoid collects counterfeit rights, and says, “They cannot do this to me.” In fact, there are “check raisers” as well as true counterfeiters among paranoids. Those with delusions can pick up very small trading stamps here and there and raise each of them into a very large denomination to get a large payoff quickly. Those with voice hallucinations can manufacture trading stamps ad infinitum right out of their heads. It is just as hard for a patient to give up a lifelong collection of hard-earned psychological trading stamps as it would be for a housewife to burn her commercial ones. This is one factor hindering recovery, since, in order to be cured, the patient must not only stop playing games compulsively, but must also forgo the pleasure of using the stamps he has collected previously. If he truly gives up his script, “forgiveness” of previous wrongs is not enough: they must become truly irrelevant for the future course of his life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
In my experience, “forgiveness” means putting the trading stamps away in a drawer, rather than disposing of them permanently; they will stay in the drawer as long as things go smoothly, but if there is a new offense, they will be pulled out and added to the new payoff in calculating the prize. Thus, if she slips up again, an alcoholic who “forgives” his wife will not go on just a little binge, but may throw in all the trading stamps he had got from all her slips or insults over the whole course of their marriage, and go on an epical bender perhaps ending in delirium tremens. So far, nothing has been said about “good” feelings such as righteousness, triumph, and joy. Righteousness stamps are made of fool’s gold, and will not pass as currency anywhere except in fool’s paradise. Triumph stamps glitter, but they are not collected by people of good taste because they are only gilt. They can be turned in, however, for a free celebration, and can thus be used worthily to bring fun to many people. Joy, like despair, is a genuine feeling, and is not the payoff of a game; thus we can speak of golden joy, just as we speak of morbid despair. The important clinical point about “good” feelings that that people who save “brown” stamps, the “bad” feelings or “feeling bads” discussed above, are often reluctant to accept “gold” stamps when they are offered in the form of compliments or “strokes.” They are quite comfortable with the familiar, bad, old feelings, but do not know where to put good ones, and so they will turn them away or ignore them by pretending not to hear. As a matter of fact, a zealous collector of “brown” stamps can turn even the sincerest compliments into veiled insults, so that instead of wasting them by refusing them or not hearing them, he will transform them into counterfeit browns. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The most common example is: “My, you look good today!” bringing out the response: “I knew you did not like the way I looked last week.” Another is: “My, that is a beautiful dress!” eliciting: “So you did not like the one I wore yesterday!” With a little practice, anyone can learn to transform compliments into insults, and by spraying a little mud over a pleasant gold stamp, turn it into an unpleasant one. Alcohol triggers mammalian reactions. Another powerful set of neurotransmitters reconstruct even more primitive realities. Narcotics reactivate first stage newly born amoeboid-like brain experiences and out the domesticate in touch with relaxed, floating, vegetative pre-terrestrial-marine neurological realities. Narcotic drugs are approved when used in sickness rituals. Symptomatic cries for help can stimulate shaman-doctors to offer the narcotic experience which activates lower-brain consciousness—ancient, infantile, vegetative. The taboo is necessary for maintaining hive discipline. The narcotic return to marine status is so tempting, so inviting, that it must be administered by an authority figure. The domesticate is not allowed access to first circuit neurotransmitters—chemical substances, such as acetylcholine or dopamine, that transmit nerve impulses across a synapse. Self-administration of narcotics to actualize infantile responses are not tolerated for fear that everyone will reject the busy, hectic, adult demands of the hive and escape back to vegetative-ocean bliss. The Doctor Ceremony is the method by which hive-society allows citizens to plug back into the early marine circuits. Intoxicant-narcotic behaviour engages earlier-slower-lower brains; hedonic behaviour engages future circuits. An amusing diagnostic sidelight on domesticated terrestrial civilizations is that it is acceptable to phone-in sick to the office and thus avoid work. Hive-society recognizes that the insectoid slavery it imposes is basically lethal to the workers. Consequently, the ceremony of sick leave is allowed. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
It is impossible, however, to phone-in “well” to the hive-center to announce: “I feel so good today, I am not coming in to work.” In the hedonic society of the future—when the dom-species is a fourth stage self-actualized adult—provision will be made for “well leave” in addition to “sick leave.” The difference between intoxicant-narcotic behaviour and hedonic behaviour should now be clear. The former engages earlier-slower-lower instinctual brains. The latter moves consciousness and behaviour into the self-actualized future, engages future neural circuits. The latter are genetic endowments, new brains presented, ready-or-not, by the evolutionary process—not earned, but grown-into. I remember having read in the verbatim reports of the Utah Conferences on Creativity, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, that an air force testing officer reported that in their search for creative men, they found that “those who get the answer without knowing how they got it are the ones we want.” The usual insistence on figuring things out first results in many things not being done because we have not got them altogether figured out first. In an education seminar a psychologist asked, “How is it that we know so much and don’t do anything?” A seventeen-year-old tole me, “talk, talk, talk and nobody does anything. Sometimes I think I’ll go really crazy.” Many people—young people especially but it is not limited to them—try to do something “spontaneously” and it flops. A young girl throws all sorts of food into a bowl and mixes them up and sticks it in the oven, and it comes out pretty awful. A young man wages his personal war on “alienation” by inviting other people to live with him and then it does not work out the way he thought it would. Neither of these two young people were in touch with their own experience, of food or people. Their experience of food or people would have shown them a better way of putting them together, and in that case, it would have been done more tentatively, a little at a time, observing what happens and making corrections. ##RandolphHarris 15 of 19
The goal is non-specific, and in that sense, there is no recipe. However, all the information from the past is available in the present. Even if I have not cooked before, still, I have seen other people cook, and I have eaten. The goal of the Sacramento Fire Department is protecting the public and fire service through coordinated efforts in code enforcement, fire service training, public education, hazardous materials response, fire investigation, and urban search and rescue. “My friend A and I were paramedics in Rescue X. We were in the firehouse. It was a quiet day, and I forget if we were watching TV or working out with weights, and I was thinking about a date I had that night. And we got a call for a collapsed building. When we got to the collapsed building, the company had already gotten out a few people who were on the first floor. It was a three-story building that had collapsed down to the street level. No fire, it just collapsed. They had electric wires down, and you could smell the gas leaking. Chief Y said, ‘Watch out for the live wires.’ There was a woman there in front running around hysterically, saying, ‘My baby is still in the building.’ So I ran up to the collapse, where there was a crowd. Somebody handed me a little kid. So I took the kid and ran down to the squad where this woman was, and I said, ‘Here’s your baby.’ The kid was about four years old. She said, ‘No, that’s not my baby. My baby is about two.’ So I ran over to Chief Y. ‘Chief, there’s another kid in there.’ #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“There was a lot of confusion and hysteria, people running around. By that time we had looked over everything that we could, without seeing the baby. The whole building was mostly in the basement, and it was still pretty unstable. The first floor was a store, so you had freezers and refrigerators and a lot of heavy stuff that fell. So there were a lot of air pockets down in the basement. We looked and looked through every hole, and we couldn’t find anything, and we couldn’t hear anything. Finally there was one small hole that hadn’t been explored. I said, ‘Chief Y should send in a few small men to find out if anything’s in there.’ So we immediately shot right into the hole. Once inside, we had to crawl like snakes from one air pocket to another. There wasn’t a lot of room, and you could see that things were barely held up by just a few things. All it took was for something to shift, and the rest of the stuff would come down on us. The electric wires were outside, and we could smell the gas. We were in there for three of four minutes when Z asked if we needed a hand, and we said, ‘Yeah.’ We were moving stuff around and Y came and helped us do that. I remember telling A, ‘A, it’s time to go.’ We had been there long enough. I didn’t hear anybody, I didn’t see anybody. And if there was somebody, he wasn’t alive anymore. He said, ‘But I’m not leaving here, because there’s somebody in here and I couldn’t live with myself.’ This sticks in my mine because we all knew that this was a little black kid we were looking for, and A is white and Z is white, too. So I said, ‘Okay, let’s look some more.’ He was looking maybe harder than I was. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Then there was a little door that had fallen on a bunch of debris, and the kid was under that door. We didn’t realize it. As a matter of fact, a couple of times we were nearly on that door. Then we started digging around the edge of the door, which let air under it, and when the kid got the air, he started crying in a muffled way. I sat right there and said, ‘We have him. We have him.’ I got Z to the Halligan. When he handed it to me, I used it to pry up the edge of the door. He looked under, and said, ‘I can see him. I can see his leg.’ Then A reached under the edge of the door and pulled the kid out. He handed him to me, I gave him to Z, and Z passed him out of the hole. I said, ‘Well, now let’s get out of here.’ Afterwards, it was funny and it was gratifying, but the whole time we were in there, it was very scary. You could smell the gas, and I knew there were lives wires outside. And the debris was still shifting down, and at any time it could have finished collapsing. And there was so much stuff over us, I knew that once it came down on us, there was nobody that could have gotten us out of there. Fortunately, it all worked out for the best. The child had only minor scratches. I don’t think he was conscious at first. Maybe all the moving around stimulated him and woke him up. If we had left him, he would have died. I’m sure of that. The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to save lives, protect property, and serve their community with courage, commitment and compassion. However, when vehicles are parked in loading zones and red zones, it can be a hinderance to the fire department and prevent them from saving lives or putting out a fire in a timely manner. Also, when you see an emergency vehicle and the lights are flashing, obey the law and safely get out of their way. Even 30 seconds are critical when it comes to saving a life or putting out a fire. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
The Sacramento Fire Department works hard to save lives and property and often risk their own lives. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. The practical realistic desire to live well whilst he is living on Earth can still leave plenty of room for idealism and spirituality. Free from the mental fatigue of ghost-haunted traditions and emotional poisons which weigh so heavily on others, he can search vigorously for great art, vital religion, inspired mysticism, and the highest philosophy—and appreciate them adequately when found. Toleration does not mean acceptance of anything, however evil it be. It means the avoidance of fanaticism, the practice of goodwill, and the recognition that by reason of their past re-incarnationary history, many wide differences of opinion, belief, practice, and character do and must exist in human beings. The ultimate discovery is of the oneness and infinitude of Mind, hence of all mankind as arising out of That. This provides the basis of his ethics, and makes him seek the common welfare alongside of his own. The person who cultivates tidy arrangements and orderly habits in the little things of everyday living unconsciously imitates the tidiness and orderliness of the Mind behind the whole Universe. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
The Winchester Mystery House
The mansion is now fully decorated in Victorian Christmas charm! Come step back in time and enjoy the holiday magic ✨🎄 🎁
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International 