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Morally Outraged Citizens

You have more choices and more opportunities than ever before. Like so many things in life, this is both a blessing and a curse. Too many choices and the fear of making bad decisions often lead to decision paralysis, which is one of the challenges of your generation. Only when the gathering of Earthly gains seems futile, and the gains themselves mere dross, will he stop bartering his precious years for them. When a desire lurks hidden in the heart, it may sway actions or influence thoughts without resistance. However, when it rises to the surface and is seen for what it is, then it can be fought and conquered. As his desires quieten, he finds to his surprise that many things hitherto thought indispensable to existence, he can do well without. He who submits his emotions and passions to reason, and his reason to intuition, will save himself from many regrets. So long as he is buffeted between his passionate desire and his self-hating guilt, so long will a distressing tension be sustained. So far they distract the mind and disturb its peace, the struggle against the passions must go on. If he is willing to be instructed–when passion, uncontrollable and blind, irrational and violent, is behind action, the consequences may be harmful to its owner but they may also be instructive. For life is an educational process, which everybody has to undergo whether the pupils like it or not. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

We are not always the same person. At one period of life, a desire may almost enslave us which has no power over us at a later period. The World can be overcome only to the extent that we overcome ourselves, our endless desires and snaring ambitions, our passions and habits. He has not only to deal with his tendencies but also with his compulsions. However, passion is an insurgent, a rebel against reason whose counterbalance it fears and avoids. Even such normal factors as curiosity and ambition become disturbing when they become excessive, unbalanced, and drive the enslaved mind. As the heart opens to this call of the inner self, the demand comes to the will for a more austere habit of living. It is the difference between gentle austerity and harsh asceticism. We continuously try to “read” our own and others’ motives. The most common bases employed for inferring the intentions, feelings, and need of the other people are observation of facial expression, tone of voice, and gestures, which generally disclose what the person is feeling; and observation of the person’s actions and its consequences, from which we try to infer what he or she is up to. Ordinarily, we can check our inferences about the other person’s motives by asking a direct question. When are we justified in assuming that our own or another person’s motives are unconscious? #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

We can never be absolutely certain, but we can entertain the hypothesis of unconscious motivation when the person acts in ways that produce consequences he or she denies intending to produce; when the person shows many signs of emotion without admitting he or she is experiencing strong feeling; and when there are obvious inconsistencies in action at different times, for example, kindness and brutality, intelligent and stupid behaviour. In addition to these general signs of unconscious motivation, there are other more subtle indicators that a person is not conscious of real influences upon his or her behaviour. These include: Dream content that seems bizarre and incomprehensible to the dreamer. Daydreams that surprise the daydreamer. Errors and “slips” in speech and writing. Body postures and evidence of bodily tensions. The forgetting of intentions, and of the names of people and places. Accidents of all kinds. Performance on certain projective tests of personality. When I am surrounded by pretending people, I sometimes feel so swamped by meaningless two-dimensional cardboard characters that I feel I may be on my way to the madness that is recognized in madness. I think that this may be the way that some of it comes about. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Nothing has to come about in one way only, and the discovery of one way eliminates others because then they are not explored. That does not put them out of existence—just out of mind, like all the other possible approached to bodily illness which the American Medical Association will not admit. I think that when we have found one way, we should use it tentatively, as the best that we have latched onto at this time, and at the same time should go on exploring other ways—with the same tentativeness. It sometimes seems to me that madness that is called insanity may sometimes be a reaction produced by the madness (as I see it) that is called sanity, or “realism.” A patent in a mental hospital told a therapist, “You want me to come into your World, but I lived there for twenty-three years and I don’t like it.” The patient was a very mixed up person, but I don’t think that he was mixed up about that. The more mentally ill a person is, the more they are caught in egocentricity, selfishness and uselessness. As for a “schizophrenic person”—there is no such thing. A person scared out of his wits is not person at all. The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information in personnel matters relating to the fire service; provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information; to advocate for the fire service in public matters; promote a modern fire; develop general improvement in fire services throughout that state and encourage a fraternal friendship among firefighters and their families. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

“When the alarm came in at nine-thirty that Wednesday morning, we were in class about the enhanced 911 system. All we knew was it was a baby trapped down a well. We were all told to go back to our stations and wait. Only our captain, X, was taken out there, possibly because he’s a small-boned man, yet real aggressive at whatever he does. We just got bits and pieces of what was going on out there during the rest of the day and through the night. We kept calling the dispatcher and asking is they needed relief people, and they never would let us go over there. I got to bed at the station at about two A.M. and got up at seven, so I had five hours’ sleep. Thursday was supposed to be my day off, when I was going to take care of our youngest child. But my wife, Y, got him ready and took him to the sitter’s. The more I thought about the baby in the well, the more I though I should be out there: I’m skinny, and they’re going down holes, and I can fit down holes. So I loaded up and told the dispatcher they probably needed a paramedic, and he agreed. I just went over there on my own. You could say I volunteered myself. This was about eight-thirty Thursday morning. I had to park two blocks away because all the cars and trucks. There were a could of hundred people there, trying to help. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

“The news people were starting to come in. The well was in the backyard of a house in the middle of the block. Z was already there, standing by the air cascade system they were using to send oxygen down to the trapped baby. The battalion chief and the EMS chief and everybody else were listening to the microphone they had lowered down the well. I saw the hole they had drilled down the day before, about five and a half feet from the well, and they were sending guys down there to drill horizontally across to the well. The well itself was just a metal casing sticking up about two or three inches above ground. It was about eight inches in diameter. They had a yellow tent over it like workers use over manholes in the streets. A fire captain was guarding the air house, a real Mr. By-the-book type guy, who just broke out and started jumping all over anyone who came close to it. Actually, he did a good job. Police officers A and Officer B did all the monitoring of the hole. The baby in the well” (will remained unknow and be called “C” for privacy). “Her parents lived out in the country, and this well was in the backyard of her sister’s house, where she was operating an unlicensed day care center. There were five or six kids in the backyard when C went down the well. The older kids were playing by themselves, and the younger kids were playing by themselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

“There was supposed to be a rock over the hole, and I saw some big rocks near there. Then we heard that there was a potted plant sitting on it, and I observed a bucker with what looked like a cactus plant in it that had been turned over and pushed out of the way. They couldn’t tell exactly how far down the well the baby had fallen, because the other small children threw stuff in after her, foliage from the yard. So we could only seen down eighteen feet and lower the mike that far. They were afraid to disturb the plant material, for fear they would make more stuff fall on C. They had lowered flashlights, and when I looked down I saw the lights shining on the green foliage stuff. I listened at the mike and could hear her moaning. That was the last time I looked down the well, but I kept going and checking with the officers on what they were hearing. Supposedly the night before she had slept for about three hours because they didn’t hear noises from her in that time. I don’t know why the kids threw the stuff down the well after her. They were so young they didn’t know the gravity of the situation. Perhaps they were just being playful. There was a story that two older kids put the baby in there, or she might have been pushed. But from the position in which I found her, I feel that she stepped in with one foot, lost her balance, and went down, because one foot was down and one was up. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

“My captain, X, had twice been down digging and hard worked for a day and a night, and he had been ordered to go home because he looked exhausted. He could have kept going, he’s in excellent condition, but they felt they had to order him to leave. Chief K of the fire department and Chief D of the police department were pretty much in control of the whole operation. The drilling engineer, Mr. L, was in charge of the digging. And Captain E was a coordinator. There was talk that the first person to reach the baby should take her out. But because there might have been serious injuries to the baby’s neck and back, we thought it should be a paramedic. We talked to the doctors there, and Dr. F and Dr. H, and Dr. I talked to the chiefs for us, and it was agreed it would be a paramedic who would bring the baby out. The only exception would be if, when they broke through to her, she just kind of grabbed somebody and she looked good and healthy, then they could bring her out. We had the smallest backboard all ready, cut down still further in size. The hole they drilled straight down was about thirty inches wide, a pretty good-sized shaft, big enough for two small, skinny guys like Z and myself to stand in it side by side. The tunnel they were digging across to the well was much narrower, but some pretty big guys were doing the drilling. One guy had a forty-six-inch chest, so we figured we shouldn’t have any trouble at all. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

“They were digging through hard rock to a point in the well below where the baby was wedged, then coming up vertically beside her, and a window between the two was being chopped out to get to her. They put a sort of bubble or inflated air bag below her to protect her from the drilling. It wasn’t until one o’clock on Friday that the drillers told us they were ready for us to go down. We went over to the hole. Any time we moved toward it, the media went crazy, thinking the rescue was coming up. But the chiefs made us go back to the ambulance. We were brought over to Chief D’s motor home for a last conference, Z and myself and this other guy, J, who was a rapeller, a rope man. Then we went down. I went in first. I was real apprehensive. I don’t go into caves a lot. I’ve been in tight places, but usually by choice, not by need. I’m real cautious, aggressive but cautious. I try to evaluate everything before I do it. Mr. L was still in the hole. He took the bubble out and talked to me for a minute. Then I went into the tunnel. I had no room at all. I had to decide whether to go on my stomach or my back. My shoulders were pressed on both sides. I had to position the light so it would shine up into the well. I got my first look at her. But I couldn’t touch her. To get my arm in there, I had to crawl back out and start back in with my arm ahead of me. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

“The width of the tunnel was probably fifteen to sixteen inches, and its height was no more than twelve to fourteen inches. I had no headroom. When my head was at the back of the tunnel was the only time I could see up into the well. I got scratched all over my forearm and elbow forcing my arm up into the well. I though, ‘Oh, God, how am I going to do this?’ All I saw dangling down was her left foot. So first off, I started an evaluation of her physically. How is she doing? What can she move? What can’t she move? People had told us they thought she was horizontal in some kind of widening of the shaft. So I couldn’t just start pulling because I was afraid I would snap her back or her neck. They had said I could reach her. But reaching up with my right arm, I could feel her left leg and her buttocks, and that was it. I couldn’t reach any higher or find her right leg or anything else. She was conscious. Not crying, but moaning. I got her to move her left foot for me. She did that. I told her to move her upper body, and I could feel her move somewhat. It looked like she was trying. I told her to push as hard as she could with her right foot, and it seemed that she went up a little bit. I communicated all this to the doctor by the phone line they had down there. They gave me a wedge made of a two-by-four and a round piece of plywood on top, supposedly to push her up and feel around her. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

“I was able to push her no more than three inches. It sounded like she was throwing up. I told her to turn her head to the side and spit it up. I didn’t want her strangling on her own throw-up. I determined that we couldn’t get her out right then. I didn’t know what position she was in, and I didn’t have enough room. So I told her we’d be back. To me, on God’s green Earth, that’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life, leave that little girl in the well that first time. I came back out. We went into conference, and all the chiefs and doctors were there. And every time I would get close to talking about having to leave her there, I would get teary-eyed, and my voice would crack. The doctors took this as a sign of emotional instability or whatever. It was the first time I had been in a situation like that, and with me, the first time I go into something, as a paramedic or firefighter, I always get real emotional. When we got out of the hole, Z was first, and his face was so solemn that people thought it meant that the baby was dead. This big water drill had been there since early in the morning, but they hadn’t put it in use because Mr. L thought it was too dangerous. They had flown it from Memphis to Huston on a United Parcel 747. It took a place that size to carry it. So Chief A and Chief D insisted that Mr. L use the water drill. So they took it down there, and they really did a good job with it. Meanwhile, the doctors were talking to the chief, expressing their concern about whether I was emotionally and physically able to go back down in. #RadolphHarris 10 of 17

“He took me aside. He said, ‘We don’t need any macho trips. There’s no shame. If you can’t go down in, just tell me, just be honest with me.’ I told him, ‘Chief, I can go down one more time. If we don’t get her out this time, there is no way I can go down again. I would be mentally, emotionally, and physically wiped out.’ So he understood that, and he backed me. Assistant Chief M backed me. Evidently Chief D did, too. And N, the EMS chief, really backed me. He said I was the one to do it. They had confidence in me. We had plenty of guys in the department who were willing to go down, so they really had to feel good about me or they wouldn’t have let me. We went down a second time. I’m not really sure of the time, I know it was still daylight, six-thirty or seven. We had done a lot of sitting around, waiting. Everybody was saying, this is our last chance. Nobody said it to me personally, but the word was, if we had to break bones, break bones. Whatever we had to do to get her out. J, the rope man, came up with a device I could lift her with, a tripod pole maybe an inch wide, with the tape on the top. He was the guy who did all the rigging in the hole. He helped us a lot. Down in the tunnel, Mr. L said, “This is it, O. This is the best it’s going to get.” They had chipped away with the water drill and give me some headroom and more shoulder room. So he went to the surface, and Z came down with the stuff we thought we were going to need. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

“I had the tripod pole with me. I went into the hole and talked to baby C. I tried to lift her with the tripod pole, and it was too short. So Z got J on the phone, and he found me a longer tripod pole. This one had a rubber stopper on the tip of it. I tried to push the baby with it, and I couldn’t move her at all. I was lying there trying to figure out what to do. Looking at the tripod pole, I saw that the other end of it had a rubberized point that couldn’t hurt anybody. So I used it as a probe to see if I could figure out the position of her body. I poked it up the wall of the well shaft along her spine. I knew if I encountered anything solid, that would give me some indication of what body part was where. I ran it up along her spine past her head, and air rushed down at me from the well above her. That meant she was in a vertical position. Her back was straight up and down. I did the same thing with the pole at the side of the shaft where the right leg should be. It went all the way up, and air rushed through again. So I knew her right foot was up by her head somewhere. I went all the way around her body with the pole. Then I knew that she wasn’t in any crevice or bubble-shaped position. The metal casing I had seen at the top of the well didn’t go very far down, and the rest of the well was lined with a sticky petroleum-type substance. It was like glue or tar. I had it all over my hands. If you got into the stuff, you just stuck to it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

So then I knew she wasn’t lying down and I could pull on her without breaking her back or injuring anything. I talked to Dr. P and the female pediatrician, Dr. Q, and I called for the K-Y jelly. They sent down some baby forceps that they use at childbirth, but they were useless in this tunnel. Earlier I had tried to use goggles to keep stuff from falling in my eyes, but they fogged up immediately. It was real warm and humid down there. I was down there close to an hour and a half. All activity above the hole had totally ceased. Z opened the K-Y jelly and gave it to me, but there was a seal that had to be broken, so I had to throw it back to him to break that. This whole time he was doing great. He was having to deal with those at the top on the phone, and he was having to deal with me, because when I wanted something I wanted it two seconds ago, not later. And his legs were cramping real bad at the same time, and I didn’t know it. I smeared the K-Y jelly over the walls of the well all the way up to the baby’s bottom. Now I needed paper towels because I’ve got this stuff all over the place. I told Z that is the paper towels hit him on the head and knocked him out, I was going to kill him. My attempted at a joke. Now came the pulling time. I was totally confident. I felt we were going to get her out, no matter what it took. And I wasn’t going to some out of that hole without her, unless they came and dragged me out. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

“She had on snap-on pants. They had come undone from the left leg, and I was using them to pull on. She was stuck to the walls, and she was crying and whining. I would pull as hard as I could, and she would tense up; then as soon as she would relax, I would pull again. The first couple of inches were the hardest to get her to move. They were really pressuring us from the top. I had Z tell them we had moved her a quarter of an inch, to get them to leave us alone for a while. I was pulling as hard as I could, and she kept tensing up. Both of my arms were exhausted. My right arm went numb two or three times. Once I got her started in the K-Y jelly, I was able to move her a half inch at a time, and she would tense up again. I knew she was coming down. Z got the backboard ready. When I got her all the way into the K-Y jelly, I had no more problems. I got her out of the hole and turned over on my stomach. I reached for the backboard, but there wasn’t room for it, because her right leg was beside the right side of her head. All the time I was telling her to stay calm, that we were going to get her out, we weren’t going to leave her again. When I got her in the K-Y jelly, she was quieter, because it wasn’t hurting her anymore. She didn’t say a word. Of course, she was only eighteen months old. She made different sounds, but nothing I could understand. She knew someone was there trying to help her. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

“I couldn’t get her out on the board, so I pulled her onto my right arm, supporting her back and neck. The light hit her left pupil and she reacted, which was great. It was a good sign. I pulled her right leg in far enough so I could get her on the backboard. Z was getting stuffy out of the way, and while I was waiting, I said something like ‘Great’ or ‘Fantastic.’ I said it too loud, and she jumped a little bit. To me that was a good sign, too. But all she was doing was lying on the board, just looking around, real relaxed. I slipped her out, supporting her with my legs, and Z wrapped her waist to her chest. We used a Velcro strap across her chest to make sure she stayed on the board. Z put a towel on her neck, because the cervical collar was too small. I took white surgical tape and went all around the board and around the towel. Her hands were welded to her temples by the sticky substance. We left her right hand where it was. We didn’t try to straighten out any limbs. We finished getting her strapped. Then Z stood in the shaft holding her. I secured her to him with seat belt straps. I secured them both to the tether line of the back board, and I attached him to the main cable of the rig. So he went up with her. The only thing that fell down from her was a pair of toy binoculars and a few twigs. When I first got her, there was a big twig between her right arm and her chest. I thought it was embedded, but when I moved her arm I saw that it wasn’t, so I threw it out of the way. Nothing else, none of the green stuff. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

“I heard them yell and scream up top, everybody was just ecstatic. I was yelling, too. Nobody could hear me, but I didn’t care. I was totally calm. As a matter of fact, I was totally exhausted, mentally and emotionally. I was light-headed, I was having a hard time focusing. I just felt I needed oxygen. So I was trying to get stuff together, and the chief said, ‘Come out now.’ He meant now, and he said it a couple of times. So I said, ‘The heck with this stuff.’ They brought me out, and I shook the chief’s hand. He’s a big man, and I just laid my head on his shoulder for a minute. I did see little C and her parents at the hospital. She looked a lot different, a lot better. She looked somewhat swollen, and I hadn’t realized that mark on her forehead was such a bad scrape. They planted a tree in that backyard that will live as long as she does. And we’re going to put a plaque on that backboard and put it in our museum. It was great to be part of it. The next time I might not be so lucky. I know that the job I do is well worth all the time and all the nonsense we go through, and the good times and the bad times. If I end up dying of cancer because of the smoke, or if I end up dying in a fire, I never think about that. I know it can happen, but that’s my job, and I love doing it. I’ve thought in the past about switching, but this guy’s going to be there until they run me off. Until I can’t do it anymore.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

The Sacramento Fire Department provides the citizens of Sacramento with the ability to create safer communities; they assist and support the fire service community and the protection of life and property; and they promote and enhance firefighter safety; the Sacramento Fire Department also provides a fire service leadership presence in the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security in order to direct policy and legislation on all fire related matters. Their core values are innovation, inclusivity, dedication, courageousness, excellence, ethicality, professionalism, and transparency. You can help save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. As along, respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. And to ensure you have a bright future, please take your education seriously. 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. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on three, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flow, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! God never gave us express allowance, only He gave us reason, charity, nature and good example to bear us out. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

The Winchester Mystery House

Our exclusive Flashlight Tour is back for one night only this December, Friday the 13th! 🔦🌙

Venture through the dark, winding halls of the mansion at night—armed only with a flashlight and your courage. And when the lights go out… there’s no turning back! (link in bio)

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/

Folk Always Listen when the Tale is their Own

To light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of humans when, at the Winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the Earth say, Let there be light. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? The three great anxieties of modern humans—the anxiety of death, that of meaningless, and that of guilt. These three forms of anxiety are three modes of response to various kinds of threats from nonbeing, threats to which existence as such is subject. Death entered the World through the fall of man. Reference here is to spiritual death which separates humans from God. Through sin it came in the beginning and so has it ever come since then. Death always comes through sin. Death has permeated the spirit, soul, and body of all people; there is no part of a human being into which it has not found its way. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

A mind that after a long season of oblivion in pain returns to wakefulness without a keen edge for the World is much in danger of souring permanently. As a practical solution to this practical problem, theology presents God. It is therefore imperative that we receive God’s life. By participating in God, who is the infinite power to resist the threat of nonbeing, humans acquire the courage to exist fully, even in the face of such anxiety. Similarly, when a person becomes deeply aware of historical existence as full of ambiguities, one becomes filled with perplexities of despair. The Christian answer is the notion of the Kingdom of God, which is the meaning, fulfillment, and unity of history. The human situation arises out of human problems. Only humanity can stone for humanity but because sin is in one’s humanity, human’s own death cannot atone for sin, nor can angels, nor animals. The Lord Jesus Christ came and took human nature upon himself in order that He might be judged instead of humanity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

Christ was a virgin and have never been married. He had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge. Untainted by sin, Christ’s holy nature could therefore through death atone for sinful humanity. He died a substitute, suffered in his spirit, soul, and body on the cross all penalty of sin, and offered his life a ransom for all of the World. Consequently, whoever believes in Him shall be judged no more. Faith is an unconditional surrender to something and the willingness to recognize it as an absolute authority; an expectation that one will in some way receive a supreme fulfillment through encounter and commerce with it; a discover that everything in one’s life and one’s World is significant only insofar as it is in some way related to it; and experiencing faith as holy—that is, reacting to it with an intimate blend of a sense of awe, mystery, and fascination. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

Every human being has such an ultimate concern, also known as faith, but the objects of the concern vary enormously. Supernatural beings, historical persons whether religious or secular, nations, social classes, political movements, cultural forms like painting and science, material goods, social status—any of these may be the object of an ultimate concern. However, orientation around a single object is a rare achievement. Most people, it would seem, have several major interests. Religious life is more than an organization of human feelings and attitudes and it involves a reference to a reality outside itself, a reference that can be validated. The doctrine of a supernatural person, like all religious doctrines, is to be conceived as an attempt to symbolize an ultimate reality, being-itself, which is so ultimate that all that can literally be said about it is that it is ultimate. Nothing can properly be of ultimate concern unless it is the ultimate determiner of the reality and meaning of our existence, and only being-itself occupies this position. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

From the conclusion, it is only a short step to say that in ultimate concern one is always really concerned with being-itself, whether one realizes it or not. The superiority of Christianity seems itself to be in symbolic terms. Dying on the cross, as the price of sin is death, Jesus Christ, who is the basic symbol of being-itself in Christianity, underlined the fact that symbols have their significance not in themselves, but as manifesting the Ultimate. The very being human was constituted spirit, soul, and body. As it is the site of human being’s personality and consciousness, the soul is connected to the spiritual World through human being’s spirit. The soul must decide whether it is to obey the spirit and hence be untied with God and His will or is to yield to the body and all the temptations of the material World. One the occasion of man’s fall the soul resisted the spirit’s authority and became enslaved to the body and its passions. The foundation for the Christian’s deliverance from sin God provides for every believer; all may enter in. Liberation from the power of sin may be experienced the very hour a sinner accepts the Lord Jesus as Savior and is born anew. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

It is important to recognize that sin possess power, for it enslaves us. It emits this power incessantly to draw us into obedience to its old man so that we might sin. The Old man represents the sum total of everything we inherit from Adam. We can recognize the old man by knowing what the new man is, because whatever is not of the new man must belong to the old. Our new man embraces everything that flows newly from the Lord at our regeneration. That old man was crucified with the Lord Jesus. When a true is unfolded by God, it most naturally becomes a power in a person, who then finds himself or herself able to believe. Faith comes through revelation. Without the latter the former is impossible. This explains why many do not have faith, for though they mentally understand they do not have God’s revelation. Therefore, the brethren pray until God gives us revelation so that know this in our spirit we may truly confess that our old man has been crucified with Christ. Sin will exercise no dominion over us. We must praise God for deliverance. The Lord wants us to serve Him in sincerity and truth. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

The defeatist attitude probably arises from the fact that time always seems to be mysteriously slipping away from us; no sooner do we grasp a bit of it in our conscious than it has slipped away into the past. A spiritual relationship with God leads to freedom. Living righteously is always a genuine decision one makes to remain attentive to the presence and power of God. It is motivated by love and reverence for the One who created us. Every morning when you wake up, set aside sometime to pray and center yourself. The practice of letting your soul be fed by God’s word and praying will prepare you for the day ahead. In everything give thanks and stay determined to remain grateful regardless of what may come your way. Gratitude helps you maintain perspective on who you are in Christ and what He has given you. We must also choose to be loving people and Christ will bless your life. Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humanity, gentleness, and patience. Everyday is a new opportunity to for improvement. God will be glorified in it, and you will be blessed. At the end of each day, we should find ourselves a little closer to God. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11

This notion of time as something which continually slips past us is based on confusion. When confined to any creature: noting below an infinite good can afford room to stretch itself, and exert its vigor and activity. What! Is a little skin-deep beauty, or some small degree of goodness, to match or satisfy a passion which was made for God: designed to embrace an infinite good? When a soul is fixed on that supreme and all-sufficient good, it finds so much perfection and goodness, as does not only answer and satisfy its affection, but master and overpower it too. It finds all its love to be too faith and languid for such a noble object, and is only sorry that it can command no more. It wishes for the flames of a seraph, and longs for the tie when it shall be wholly melted and dissolved into love; and because it can do so little itself, it desires the assistance of the whole creation, that angels and humans would conquer it the admiration and love of those infinite perfections. If God is the object of our love, we should share in an infinite happiness, without any mixture or possibility of diminution. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

We should rejoice to behold the glory of God and receive comfort and pleasure from all the praises wherewith humans and angles do extol him. It should delight us, beyond all expression, to consider, that the beloved of our souls is infinitely happy in himself, and that all his enemies cannot shake or unsettle his throne, that our God is in the Heavens, and does whatever he pleases. Behold, on what sure foundation his happiness is built, whose soul is possessed with divine love, whose will is transformed into the will of God, and whose great desire is, that our Mater should be pleased! Oh, the peace, the rest, the satiation that attends such a temper of mind! It is the nature of faith to believe God upon His bare word. One of the greatest abilities God has given each of us is our ability to believe. If you believe, you can be successful and will fulfill your God-given destiny. There is incredible power in what we believe. What God promised, he will do. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

I pray that we understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for all who believe. Notice the power is activated only when we believe. That means right now the Creator of the Universe is just waiting to release healing, restoration, promotion, and abundance. The only catch is you have to believe. Our concept of a physical thing as a three-dimensional entity which can move and change, our concept of a physical event as a change in one or more such physical things, and our concept of physical causation as a relation between physical events is a ground-floor empirical fact that we observe things moving and changing. It is not complicated. God did not say, “If you will pray three hours a day,” or “If you will quote thirteen chapters in the Scripture, then I will do it for you.” No. God said, “If you will only believe in me and do what is righteous, I will arrange things in your favor.” When you believe, the surpassing greatness of God’s power is released. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11

In an experiment, subjects were attending to sounds which had audibly terminated, though they were still presented in the sense that the subject could still “hear” them. If we say that a sound which has audibly terminated is still present, this would be inconsistent, for “it has audibly terminated” implies “it is past.” We ought surely to describe the duration of the specious present, as the span of immediate memory for hearing, and to call this a specious present is appropriate. When you believe, God will see to it that it is taken care of. When you believe, you have the Creator of the Universe fighting your battles, arranging things in your favor, going before you, moving the wrong people out of the way. You could not have made it happen in your own strength, but because you are a believer, the surpassing greatness of God’s power is at work in your life. Let this lay a foundation in your spirit. Because you are a believer, all will be well with you. All will be well with your family. All will be well with your finances. All will be well with your health. All will be well with your career. God promises are about to manifest in your life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11

QUICK MOVE-IN |HOMESITE 60
New HomesCresleigh HavenwoodQuick Move-In |Homesite 60
4 Bedrooms – 3 Bathrooms – 2,627 sq. ft. – $769,245

Home Site 60, a Residence Two, in a prime cul de sac location. This is a spacious single story home with over 2,500 square feet of home thoughtfully designed to maximize every available foot of space. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a three car garage all come included in this home. The layout if an entertainer’s dream with large kitchen and working island, and a large great room overlooking the ample rear yard.

This home includes over $40,000 in options and upgrades including:
• Durable luxury vinyl plank flooring throughout the first floor
• White Painted Cabinetry
• Gourmet Kitchen option with upgraded appliances
• Over Island Pendants and Under Cabinet Lighting
• Upgraded Brushed Nickel Hardware & Plumbing Fixtures
• Owned Solar

Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Home Mini!

Nature and the Unity and Diversity of Life

It is no secret that fall is the time to head to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, where you will find a mosaic tile of natural deciduous trees like the red maple, sugar maple, white oak, and tulip polar trees, and you will see an autumn cascade in the Little River Canyon. Nature, as we ordinarily use the term, means the order of physical existence which forms our environment, the objective or external aspect of our own lives, the World of animals and plants and minerals, surrounded with the sea and sky. Nature means this, and is supposed to be majestic and beautiful. The most important imaginative impact that physical nature has on us is a sense of alienation. Nature feels intelligent, moral, and peaceful. It is natural for humans to also be moral, civilized, and socially disciplined; it is unnatural to live like animals. Humans are supposed to possess innocence, chastity—the nature of God. The Great Smoky Mountains—they are the very definition of a forest, and one of America’s most visited parks. Mammoth Cave, which is located in the Great Smoky Mountains is the longest cave in the World, with more than 360 miles of mapped passages. Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, which protects a simple, yet beautiful landscape that once covered the Midwest.

The nature God had originally planned for man was that of the Golden Age or the Garden of Eden: this was lost at the Fall of man, but in some measure is recreated by the disciplines of civilization, morality, religion, and the arts. Man is subject to death, and on the physical level of nature there can be no more natural event than death. Yet death was not part of the order originally planned for man, and in that context, death is unnatural, sin even more so. The circling of the immortal heavenly bodies in the sky is the most eloquent symbol of the order and harmony of the nature that was originally intended for humans. The traditional, music of the celestial spheres symbolized a harmony that is recreated by human music. Music in God has its traditional Platonic meaning of the musical arts, which include poetry (as distinct from the technical arts of painting and architecture), and it also has regularly attacked to it the pun on the word harmony which makes it a symbol of the original order of nature established for man before the Fall. God consistently uses music to represent the order and balance that ought to exist in both individual and social forms of human life. Music is indispensable in restoring sanity to the insane, health to the sick; even life itself to those like Thaisa, have temporarily lost it.

Harmony disciplines the soul, and the human mind, symbolizing the hidden sympathy between man and nature evoked by music and poetry. The art is man’s nature, the World of art and music and nature are identical on the human level, natural life goes hand in hand with proficiency in music and poetry. The settings of my photographs are usually designed to suggest the Garden of Eden or the Golden Age. In ordinary life the fact that humans essentially belong to a World with a human shape is symbolized by the garden, the cultivated form of nature. When cultivated, the garden belongs to the human level of nature; when left uncultivated, it relapses to the ordinary physical level. The garden is used as an image of human society, to appease God. Evergreen trees symbolize immortality. In Contrast, Deciduous broadleaf trees are dominant at moist, temperate latitudes, where winters are not severe. As we move out of tropical rainforest, we enter regions where temperatures remain mild, but rainfall dwindles during part of the year. Here we find tropical deciduous forests, in which many trees drop some or all of their leaves during the pronounced dry season. The monsoon forests of India and southeastern Asia also has such trees. Farther north, in the temperate zone, rainfall is even lower, and temperatures become cold during the Winter.

Here are regions of temperate deciduous forest. Conditions do not favor decomposition as much as they do in the humid tropics, but nutrients are conserved in the accumulated litter on the forest floor, which helps to keep moisture in the soil and fertilize it, but in the cities and suburbs, if the leaves collect in the street, or of the roof of your house, they can cause flooding and water damage to houses and roof. Nonetheless, all trees are beautiful. At one time, deciduous broadleaf forest stretched across northeastern North America in Sacramento, California, Europe, and eastern Asia. Ash, beech, birch, chestnut, elm, and deciduous oak trees dominated the forests, which largely disappeared as land was cleared for farming. Some species introduced to North America brought diseases that wiped out nearly all chestnuts and many American elms. Without rain, Earth would turn into Mars, and the planet would burn up, terminating all life. Today, maple and beech forests predominate in the Northeast. They give way to oak-hickory forests father west, which grade into oak woodlands and tall grass prairies of the Midwest.

The God addressed the gardener as Adam’s likeness, and talks of Even and the serpent, but this garden is not Eden: it is the ground that Adam had to till after the Fall of Man, and the Queen’s attempt to curse it is useless because the general curse of nature is already there. This nature is the physical World. This is the upper or human level of nature. Humans are nice and kind and smart and gentle and caring and social, but monogamous. The natural state of man, then, is a civilized and ordered state because man is made in the image of God, and God is perfect, therefore, so is man. Geometry is one of my favorite courses. The King is the less, he is a symbol and the more he is an incarnation of nature. Nature above art in that respect, like poets, are born not made. Murder in the order of nature, which lets in a destructive force, represented by the tempest-raising witches, and by the prodigies and portents of the murder itself, will lead to your own inevitable destruction. However, no king can actually restore mankind to the Golden Age; all around human society is still the lower physical order of nature. People on the lower levels of human nature are persistent danger of severely hurting self or others; or president inability to maintain minimal personal hygiene; or serious suicidal acts. They are repeatedly violent, maintains almost no personal hygiene and have made potentially lethal suicide attempts. Are manically excited, smears own feces, and is either incoherent or mute. Speech is illogical, obscure, or irrelevant.

This order moves in circles, imitating the stars in their courses, but it cyclical movement is an amoral force, and it operates by necessity rather than by intelligence and freedom. It produces not only the cycles of prosperity and decline that is called the four seasons on the wheel of fortune, Earth. Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park is just over an hour from Washington, D.C., but a World away. The park contains more than 500 miles of hiking trails, including 101 miles of the Appalachian Trail, but its most famous feature is Skyline Drive, a scenic byway that funs 105 miles north and south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. If you are planning a trip in the fall, aim for the middle of the week, as the route is usually packed with cars most fall weekends. In life, some have mostly bad experiences because they are at lower levels of functioning. At the higher wheel of fortune, the highest parts of your life are represented by superior function, in a wide range of activities. No symptoms. Life’s problems never seem to get out of hand. Person is sought out by others because of his or her many good skills and qualities. People at the lower end of the natural cycle will experience a lot of chaos of the storm. Happy people move upward with the ascending cycle, people who are kind and honest and hardworking.

In a way, history cannot do, a reintegration with the higher level of nature. The only paradises are the paradises we take care of. The natural head of state; because of the conception of nature involved, he does what is required of him. If he does not, society’s natural order throws up another natural force. A natural force that under certain conditions inevitably makes its appearance. Because of his de facto authority, and society’s need of order, becomes de jure as well, a fact borne witness to by Sacramento’s dramatic transfer of loyalties to him. Still this transfer of power to William Randolph Hearst does not illustrate a breaking of the connection between human society and the cosmic order, and consequently the deposing of William becomes impotent, all the architectures, art, magic of music and poetry becomes attacked to him, because of the fact that he shares the same name as a great head of state. Now he begins to bear the obloquy of responsibility, but neither his effort to dissociate himself from the Winchester nor his dream of going into retirement can give his crown the glamour that, in history, only a lost cause can have. William Randolph Hearst, with his tremendous energy and egoism, is very well adjusted to nature as an amoral force, the aspect of nature that has been intensified by William Wirt Winchester’s accession.

The Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House is the key to many answers. But be careful, for on the day that you come for a tour, your mind will be open, and your life will be changed forever! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/











