Faith and hope and this-Worldly resurrection have found their classic expression in the messianic vision of the prophets. They do not predict the future, like a Cassandra or the chorus of the Greek tragedy; they see the present reality free from the blindfolds of public opinion and authority. They do not want to be prophets but feel compelled to express the voice of their conscience—of their “knowing-with”—to say what possibilities they see and to show the people the alternative and to warn them. This is all they aspire to do. It is up to the people to take their warning seriously and to change their ways, or to remain deaf and blind—and to suffer. Prophetic language is always the language of alternatives, of choice, and of freedom; it is never that of determinism, for better or worse. The shortest formulation of prophetic alternativism is the verse in Deuteronomy: “I put before you today life and death, and you chose life!” In the prophetic literature the messianic vision rested upon the tension between “what existed or was still there and that which was becoming and was yet to be there.” In the postprophetic period a change took place in the meaning of the messianic idea, making its first appearance in the Book of Daniel around 164 B.C. and in pseudo-epigraphical literature which was not incorporated in the collection of the Old Testament. This literature has a “vertical” idea of salvation as against the “horizontal” historical idea of the prophets. The emphasis is on the transformation of the individual and largely on a catastrophic end of history, occurring in a final cataclysm. This apocalyptic version is not that of alternatives but of prediction; not that of freedom but of determinism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

In the later Talmudic or Rabbinical tradition, the original prophetic alternativistic vision prevailed. Early Christian thought was mor strongly influenced by the apocalyptic version of messianic thought, although, paradoxically, as an institution the Church usually retreated to a position of passive waiting. Nevertheless in the concept of the “Second Coming” the prophetic concept remained alive and the prophetic interpretation of Christian faith has again and again found its expression in revolutionary and “heretical” sects; today the radical wing in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the various non-Catholic Christian denominations, shows a marked return to the prophetic principle, to its alternativism as well as to the concept that spiritual aims must be applied to the political and social process. Outside of the Church, original Marxist socialism was the most significant expression of the messianic vision in a secular language, only to be corrupted and destroyed by the communist distortion of Marx. In recent years the messianic element in Marxism has found its voice again in a number of socialist humanist, especially in Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Marxists and Christians have become engaged in a World-wide dialogue, based on the common messianic heritage. If hope, faith, and fortitude and love their servitude and dependence? It is precisely the possibility of this loss that is characteristic of the human existence. We start out with hope, faith, and fortitude—they are the unconscious, “no-thought” qualities of the sperm and the egg, of their union, of the growth of the foetus, its birth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

However, when life begins, the vicissitudes of the environment and accident begin to further or to block the potential of hope. Most of us had hoped to be loved—not just to be coddled and to be fed, but to be understood, to be cared for, to be respected. Most of us hoped to be able to trust. When we were little, we did not yet know the human invention of the lie—not only that of lying with words but that of lying with one’s voice, one’s gesture, one’s eyes, one’s facial expression. How should the child be prepared for this specifically human ingenuity: the lie? Most of us are awakened, some more and some less brutally to the fact that people often do not mean what they say or say the opposite of what they mean. And not only “people,” but the very people we trusted most—our parents, teachers, leaders. Few people escape the fate that at one point or another in their development, their hopes are disappointed—sometimes completely shattered. Perhaps this is good. If a man did not experience the disappointment of his hope, how could his hope become strong and unquenchable? How could he avoid the danger of being an optimistic dreamer? However, on the other hand, hope often is shattered so thoroughly that a man may never recover it. In fact, the responses and reactions to the shattering of hope vary a great deal, depending on many circumstances: historical, personal, psychological, and constitutional. Many people, probably the majority, react to the disappointment of their hopes by adjusting to the average optimism which hopes for the best without bothering to recognize that even the good but perhaps, indeed, the worst may occur. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

As long as everybody else whistles, such people whistle too, and instead of feeling their hopelessness, they seem to participate in a kind of pop concert. They reduce their demands to what they can get and do not even dream of that which seems to be out of their reach. They are well-adjusted members of the herd and they never feel hopeless because nobody else seems to feel hopeless. They present the picture of a peculiar kind of resigned optimism which we see in so many members of contemporary Western society—the optimism usually being conscious and the resignation unconscious. Another outcome of the shattering of hope is the “hardening of the heart.” We see many people—from juvenile delinquents to hard-boiled but effective adults—who at one point of their lives, maybe at five, maybe at twelve, maybe at twenty, cannot stand to be hurt any more. Some of them, as in a sudden vision or conversation decide that they have had enough, that they will not feel anything any more; that nobody will ever be able to hurt them, but that they will be able to hurt others. They may complain about their bad luck in not finding any friends or anyone who loves them, but it is not their bad luck, it is their fate. Having lost compassion and empathy, they do not touch anybody—nor can they be touched. Their triumph in life is not to need anybody. They take pride in their untouchability and pleasure in being able to hurt. Whether this is done in criminal or legitimate ways depends much more on social factors than on psychological ones. Most of them remain frozen and hence unhappy until their lives run out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Not so rarely, a miracle happens and a thaw begins. It may simply be that they meet a person in whose concern or interest they believe, and new dimensions of feeling open. If they are lucky, they unfreeze completely and the seeds of hope which seem to have been destroyed altogether come to life. Another and much more drastic result of shattered hope is destructiveness and violence. Precisely because men cannot live without hope, the one whose hope has been utterly destroyed hates life. Since he cannot create life, he wants to destroy it, which is only a little less of a miracle—but much more easy to accomplish. He wants to avenge himself for his unlived life and he does it by throwing himself into total destructiveness to that it matters little whether he destroys others or is destroyed. Usually the destructive reaction to shattered hope is to be found among those who, for social or economic reasons, are excluded from the comforts of the majority and have no place to go socially or economically. It is not primarily the economic frustration which leads to hate and violence; it is the hopelessness of the situation, the ever-repeated broken promises, which are just as conducive to violence and destructiveness. In fact, there is little doubt that groups which are so deprived and mistreated that they cannot even be hopeless because they have no vision of hope are less violent that those who see the possibilities of hope and yet recognize at the same time that the circumstances make the realization of their hopes impossible. Psychologically speaking, destructiveness is the alternative to hope, just as attraction to death is the alternative to the love of life, and just as joy is the alternative to boredom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Not only does the individual live by hope. Nations and social classes live through hope, faith, and fortitude, and if they lose this potential they disappear—either by their lack of vitality or by the irrational destructiveness which they develop. The development of hope or hopelessness in an individual is largely determined by presence of hope or hopelessness in his society or class. However shattered an individual’s hope may have been in childhood, if he lives in a period of hope and faith, his own hope will be kindled; on the other hand, the person whose experience leads him to be hopeful will often tend to be depressed and hopeless when his society or class has lost the spirit of hope. Today, and increasingly so since 9/11, the COVID pandemic, crisis at the Southern Border, hyperinflation, and perhaps specifically in America ever since the defeat of the Republican Party in New York and California, hope is disappearing fast in the Western World. The hopelessness is covered up as optimism and, in a few, as revolutionary nihilism. However, whatever a man thinks about himself is of little importance in comparison with what he is, with what he truly feels, and most of us are not aware of what we feel. The signs of hopelessness are all here. Look at the bored expression of the average person, the lack of contact between people—even when they desperately try “to make contact.” Look at the incapacity to plan seriously for overcoming the ever-increasing poisonousness of the city’s water and air and the predictable famine in American cities and poor countries, not to speak of the inability to get rid of the daily threat to the lives and plans of all of us—the thermonuclear weapon. Whatever we say or think about hope, our inability to act or plan for life betrays our hopelessness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

We know a little about the reasons for this growing hopelessness. Before 9/11 people thought that the World was a safe place, that wars were a thing of the past. And yet, people found out that the government had been warned about the 9/11 attacks and ignored the warnings. Then came the invasion at our southern border, with its comedy of pretensions both from the democrats and republicans. And neither one of the current political parties has tried to use their power to crush illegal immigration to save America. However, there are still other reasons for the increasing hopelessness: the formation of the totally bureaucratized industrial society and the powerlessness of the individual. If America and the Western World continue in their state of unconscious hopelessness, lack of faith and of fortitude, it its predictable that they will not be able to resist the temptation of the big bang by nuclear weapons, which would end all problems—overpopulation, boredom, and hunger—since it would do away with all life. Progress in the direction of a social and cultural order in which man is in the saddle depends on our capacity to come to grips with our hopelessness. First of all, we have to see it. And second, we have to examine whether there is a real possibility of changing our social, economic, and cultural life in a new direction which will make is possible to hope again. If there is no such real possibility, then indeed hope is sheer foolishness. However, if there is a real possibility, there can be hope, based on examination of new alternatives and options, and on concerted actions to bring about the realization of these new alternatives. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

The unity in which we seek consist in a certitude emanating from the nature of man who seeks God and the nature of God who seeks man. Such certitude bathes in an intuitive act of cognition, participating in the divine essence and is related to the natural spirituality of intelligence. This is not by any means to say that there is an equivalence of all faiths in the traditional religions of human history. It is, however, to emphasize the distinction between the spiritual and the temporal which all religions acknowledge. For duration of thought is composed of instants superior to time, and is an intuition of the permanence of existence and it metahisotical reality. The basic and poignant concern of every faith is to point to and overcome the crisis in our apocalyptic epoch—the crisis of man’s separation from man and of man’s separation from God—the failure of love. The truth that the human heart is able, and even yearns, to go to the very lengths of God is related to Being in pure act, moving with centrifugal and ecumenical necessity outward into the manifold modes, yet simultaneously, with dynamic centripetal power and with full intentional energy, returning to the source. The darkness and cold, the frozen spiritual misery of recent time, are breaking, cracking, and beginning to move, yielding to efforts to overcome spiritual muteness and moral paralysis. In this way, it is hoped, the immediacy of pain and sorrow, the primacy of tragedy and suffering in human life, may be transmuted into a spiritual and moral triumph. For the uniqueness of man lies in his capacity for self-transcendence. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

God is not to be treated as an exception to metaphysical principles, invoked to prevent their collapse. He is rather their chief exemplification, the source of all potentiality. The personal reality of freedom and providence, of will and conscience, may demonstrate that “he who knows” commands a depth of consciousness inaccessible to the profane man, and is capable of that transfiguration which prevents the twisting of all good to ignominy. This religious content of experience is not within the province of science account as if it were itself metaphysical or religious; it challenges the tendency to make a religion of science—or a science of religion—a dogmatic act which destroys the moral dynamic of man. Indeed, many men of science are confronted with unexpected implications of their own thought and are beginning to accept, for instance, the trans-spatial and trans-temporal dimension in the nature of reality. No convincing image of man can arise, in spite of the many ways in which human thought had tried to reach it, without a philosophy of human nature and human freedom which does not exclude God. This image of Homo cum Deo implies the highest conceivable freedom, the freedom to step into the very fabric of the Universe, a new formula for man’s collaboration with the creative process and the only one which is able to protect man from the terror of existence. This image implies further that the mind and conscience are capable of making genuine discriminations and thereby may reconcile the serious tensions between the secular and religious, the profane and sacred. The idea of the sacred lies in what it is, timeless existence. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

By emphasizing timeless existence against reason as a reality, we are liberated, in our communion with the eternal, from the otherwise unbreakable rule of “before and after.” Then we are able to admit that all forms, all symbols in religions, by their negation of error and their affirmation of the actuality of truth, make it possible to experience that knowing which is above knowledge and that dynamic passage of the universe to unending unity. Mankind must be directed toward a reality that is eternal and away from a preoccupation with that which is illusory and ephemeral. The story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, of Abraham’s pleading with God for the salvation of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Jonah’s mission to Nineveh, and many others parts of the Bible impressed me deeply. However, more than anything else, I was moved by the prophetic writings, by Isaiah, Amos, Hosea; not so much by their warnings and the announcement of disaster, but by their promise of the “end of days,” when nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;” when all nations will be friends, and when “the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” The vision of universal peace and harmony between all nations touched me deeply when I was twelve and thirteen years old. Probably the immediate reason for this absorption by the idea of peace and internationalism was from growing up in a Christian environment. #RandolphHarris 10 of  18

The more insane and dehumanized this World of our seems to become, the more may an individual feel the need of being together and of working together with men and women who share one’s human concerns. I certainly felt that need and have been grateful for the stimulating and encouraging companionship of those with whom I have had the good fortune of working. When the Holy Spirit fills the atmosphere of a room, the spirit of man is conscious of it, not his sense. The faculties of those present are alert and clear and they retain freedom of action. The spirit is made tender and the will pliable to the will of God. All the actions of a person moved by the true and pure presence of God are in accord with the highest ideal of harmony and grace. The holiness of God: When realized by the believer it produces worship and godly awe, with a hatred of sin. On the ground of the blood of Calvary, God draws near to men, seeking their love, and His presence does not terrorize. A truth faith given of God in the spirit, having its origin in Him, reckoning without effort upon Him to fulfill His written Word is trusting God. It coexists with the full use of every faculty in intelligent action. “Faith” is a fruit of the Spirit and cannot be forced. When we have a reliance upon God, one has an attitude of the will, of trust and dependence upon God, taking Him at His word, and depending upon His character of faithfulness. The spirit, when waiting on God, is in restful cooperation with the Holy Spirit, awaiting God’s time to act and to fulfill His promises. The true waiting upon God can be coexistent with the keenest activity of mind. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Praying to God: Having access to the Holiest of all, on the ground of the blood. Penetrating in spirit through the in abnormal suffering may be the fruit of (unconscious) acceptance of suffering caused by evil spirits, often under the name of “the will of God.” “The depth” signifies “the depth-experience” or “the experience of the depths” which is faith. Faith as ultimate concern is the portal through which one must ass in order to attain New Being. God is the ground of being, but He is encountered only in the experience of the holy, and all religious symbols take their origin from this experience of ultimacy. Jesus is the Christ only because He is received as such by faith, and He rose from the dead only because his disciples had an ecstatic experience of the New Being. The Spiritual Community is created by the Spiritual Presence which drives man’s spirit beyond itself into faith and love. The Protestant principle which constitutes the essence of Protestantism is based upon an experience of God who jealously demands that ultimacy be reserved for Him alone. Finally, the Kingdom of God breaks through into history in a faith-charged moment that is the Kairos. One can see faith everywhere in the World as an operative reality. There is a universality, or omnipresence of faith in the Christian World. Do not look at the human situation and wonder if faith is there. Know it is there, and find it by attuning with the ultimate concern which throbs beneath the surface. An adequate understanding of faith demands that one eventually pass from formal faith to material faith. Faith which is found in the criterion of the Cross and of the Christ is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern; it is produced by the Spirit, not by human activity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Instead of erecting a holy community out of the World, true faith understands allows one to see the whole World as already being the holy community. Nobody escapes it. All, even unawares, belong to it. The Christian message must indeed become all things to all men, but it must also be itself. Its roots can be traced back to the experience of the holy as the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum. God’s very presence forces the acknowledgement of the infinite gulf between Him and the creature. In ontological terms, because God is the ground of being, He is also the abyss of being in that He can never be contained within the narrow confines of a finite form of being. This is the meaning of the Cross of Jesus the Christ, for Jesus as a being sacrificed Himself to the New Being. Symbols which originate in and express the experience of faith remain subject to the criterion of the Cross. Victory over religious heteronomy, over the demonization and profanization of the churches, also lies in the sign of the Cross. Only grace effect salvation, and anything that infringes upon this divine prerogative must be met with prophetic protest. Everyone knows that religion has its human, erroneous, even sinful side, but this awareness should never undercut our confidence that God’s grace can reach us, even though conveyed in vessels of clay. Prophecy, in the sense of protect, is a delicate business indeed. Culture is the fruit of the creative activity of man. The role of theology as that of mediating between the human situation and divine revelation, and the method of correlation demands that the answers of theology be clothed in the language of man’s existential condition. The all-important concept of faith is defined in terms of man’s experience of and need for the unconditioned. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Jesus the Christ is meaningful because in Him appears the New Being which heals man’s estrangement. The Spiritual Community is explained on the basis of man’s quest for unambiguous life. And the eschatological fulfilment of the Universe is accomplished in the essentialization of man, for in him is found the unity of the multiple dimensions of life. In a certain sense any Christian theology is anthropocentric, for the Creed declares that Jesus Christ came down from Heaven for us men and for our salvation. However, one could hold, for example, that sin is the problem of man, for man must be saved from sin; or that grace is the problem of man, for man is saved through grace; or that morally good life; or, finally, that faith is the problem of man, for the way to salvation is illuminated by the light of faith. However, man can also be seen as the problem of man. If man becomes what he essentially is, salvation is achieved. This fulfilled man is the New Man; he posses New Being. Furthermore, according to the doctrine of the microcosm and the multidimensional unity of life, the Universe itself is saved in the salvation of man. Christ, the depth of culture, is translated to mean that New Being is the ultimate concern of man. The New Being provides ontological breadth, ultimate concern imparts experiential depth, and the anthropological emphasis gives vitality to Christ as the depth of culture. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

Early Christianity did not consider itself as a radical-exclusive, but as the all-inclusive religion in the sense of saying: “All that is true anywhere in the World belongs to us, the Christians.” And it is significant that the famous words of Jesus, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Faither is perfect” (which was always an exegetic riddle), would, according to recent research, be better translated, “You must be all-inclusive as your Heavenly Father is all-inclusive.” First, one must say that revelatory experiences are universally human. Religions are based on something that is given to a man wherever he lives. He is given a revelation, a particular kind of experience which always implies saving powers. One never can separate revelation and salvation. There are revealing and saving powers in all religions. God has not left Himself unwitnessed. As I think of the blessings God has given us and the many beauties of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I am aware that along the way we are asked to make certain contributions in return, contributions of time or of money or of other resources. These are all valued and all necessary, but they do not constitute our full offering to God. Ultimately, what our Father in Heaven will require of us is more than a contribution; it is a total commitment, a complete devotion, all that we are and all that we can be. The Lord Jesus as Christ shapes our behaviour and forms our character in all area of our life—personally, within the home, in our professions and community life, as well as in our devotion to the Church that bears his name. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

If we can pattern our life after the Master, and take His teachings and examples as the supreme pattern for our own, we will not find it difficult to be consistent and loyal in every walk of life, for we will be committed to a single, sacred standard of conduct and belief. Whether at home or in the marketplace, whether at school or long after school is behind us, whether we are acting totally alone or in concern with a host of other people, our course will be clear and our standards will be obvious. We will have determined, as the prophet Alma said, “to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in fall places that we may be in, even until death,” reports Mosiah 18.9. This loyalty obviously includes support of the institutional church, but one of the purposes of that church is to alter an improve the way we live every other aspect f our lives as well, wherever we are and in whatever circumstance we find ourselves “even until death.” The ability to stand by one’s principles, to live with integrity and faith according to one’s belief—that is what matters, that is the difference between a contribution and commitment. That devotion to true principle—in our individual lives, in our home and families, and in all places where we meet and influence other people—that devotion is what God is ultimately requesting of us. How do we feel about honour and integrity? What is our reaction to polite lying to facilitate easy social relationships? How much tolerance have we for either suppression or misrepresentation to facts to promote business advantage? How sacredly do we regard the good name oof another? Do we pass on spicy bits of entertaining conversation, repeating rumors and stories which have not been submitted to the test of truth? #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

I may not be able to stop all graft and dishonesty in high places, but I myself can be honest and upright, gull of integrity and true honour. We simply must have love and integrity and strong principles in our homes. We must have an abiding commitment to marriage and children and morality. We must succeed where success counts most for the next generation. Surely that home is strongest and most beautiful in which we find each person sensitive to the feelings of others, striving to serve others, striving to live at home the principles we demonstrate in more public settings. We need to try harder to live the gospel in our family circles. Our homes deserve our most faithful commitments. A child has the right to feel that in his home he is safe, that there he has a place of protection from the dangers and evils of the outside World. Family unity and integrity are necessary to supply this need. A child needs parents who are happy in their relationship to each other, who are working happily toward the fulfillment of ideal family living, who love their children with a sincere and unselfish love, and who are committed to the family success. If full integrity were to rule in family life, just imagine the reversal that would take place. Husbands would be faithful to wives, and wives to husbands. There would be no living in adulterous relationships in lieu of marriage. Homes would abound in love, children and parents would have respect for one another. How else will our children come to value honesty and integrity? A successful life, the good life, the righteous Christian life requires commitment—whole souled, deeply held, eternally cherished commitment to the principles we know to be true in the commandments God has given. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

The Sacramento Fire Department truly are jacks-of-all-trades, but they are also masters of them all. Given then any challenge; they will face it and overcome it. That is one of the most awesome things of the fire service. Call the Sacramento Fire Department, present them with a problem, and they will figure it out and work you through it. The fire department is there to help people. They are there to help families. Simply put, their best day is their worst day. When you are at your worst and life has you down, when you have got something horrible going on, whether it is a fire, a medical problem, or some other type of disaster, they were be there to help you every time. The Sacramento Fire Department will do everything they can to make things better again. These firefighters are talented and are the cream of the crop in society. The fire department also makes sure they protect their personnel in every way imaginable. Whether it is protective clothing, and assuring that they have the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) including good, reliable, and safe self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), assuring that they have radios and that they work, assuring that they have the training needed to do their job, the support of the fire department administration or the upper echelon, the proper apparatus, firehouses, tools, and equipment, and more than anything else, the proper amount of personnel. Their goal is to make sure they have anything that will help them do their jobs to the best of their abilities and stay safe. Therefore, consider making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department, to insure they have all the necessary resources. 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 Justic for all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

The Winchester Mystery House

In 1901, Mrs. Winchester reported an entity came after her. It beat and shook her bedstead with great force. Mrs. Winchester was not aware of any blows, but she was perceived to tremble violently. After this the servants would hear the sound of scraping under her bed, and Mrs. Winchester would be raised a few inches into the air. It seemed then that the noisy apparition was only interested in her. So Mrs. Winchester decided to sleep in a different room every night in hopes of avoiding the apparitions. On 1 October it ascended into the Daisy Bedroom, making a mighty noise. A young male servant, going into that room one morning, saw two wooden boards of the floor begin to move. He held out his hands and one of the boards was thrust toward him. He shoved it back, and again it returned to him. This happened apparently twenty times in succession, by which stage other people had entered the room and seen the tussle between the servant and the uninvited guest. The chairs walked about the room of themselves, Mrs. Winchester’s shoes were hurled over her head, and every loose thing moved about the chamber.

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/