Salutation #122

Here we are, locked in a moment...

Here we are, searching for a way...
Here we are, seeking what questions to ask...

What shall we fill this moment with?

Where shall this moment take us?

All the while, 

history waits for an answer.

And history can not wait forever.

---<--@

(Scarborogh Shoal)

I want to tell you, China - again -
you are a valued nation
among the nations of this world.

In your completeness,
I see you not as a thing of War.

This is my hope for you - success!

For peace is what I desire for you.

And in those same terms,
may you be able to also respect mine.

For I too belong to a nation
- just the same as yours -
fully engaged in a work of completion
upon this same earth
as a particular undertaking of Country
unique to my people.

We are a particular responsibility
established in peace and human community
- human and imperfect -
yet free, and able, and willing to grow
by grace of God and our own determination
as a sovereign labor of living life
upon this world.

Sovereignty is what lays claim
to a national responsibility
that can (and must) be defined
but can never be shared.

To impugn on sovereignty
is to deny the right of any nation
to array itself across time
as a particular undertaking of Country.

We can not share sovereignty -
neither can you share yours.

But resources,
perhaps this,
we can.

But Scarborough Shoal 
is not just about resources.

- selah -

It is about the future shape of things.
And of this - we all have a stake.

For the future of our failing world
is a vision that we all must quest for
- and - if the history of the last 2000 years
have sufficiently taught
the memory of all our nations,
one that must be shared.

The destiny of this planet
is both a burden and an endowment
we must commonly bear
the labor and the responsibility for -
as nations dreaming together this time.

You seek to isolate us
from the judgment of our kindred nations
to expose us to thy military might
and speak to us in the terms of War
but this is not thy spirit
and this is not thy tongue.

We can not prosper unto an agreement
if we have already surrendered it
to the War that seeks to pit us
against each other as pawns.

For War is the bane of our existence!

Shall War distinguish between us
which of our people it shall devour?

Nay! 

War shall take us to a place
- even our angels dare not tread -
a lonely and desolate place.

Let us then affirm,
O my kindred Chinese nation -
Peace is the craft of our nations.

- selah -

I go back to the words
my own President spoke to you
about this vital area of sea - that -
more than it separates our nations
are waters that connect us
and connect us better - and more deeply -
than we at present
may claim to understand.

It is a sea of friendship (and harmony)!

(Its waters being purposed

as a medium of peace, goodwill, and justice

between our nations, 

between all the nations in our region, 

our continent, and our world.)

Let those words come back to us now
in this moment, in this space between our hopes,
and let the history of the present
be written in the spirit.
of our mutual determination
see to it that this work of division
does not overcome our common desire
for a better world - for our Asia -
and for all the nations of our Mankind.

- selah -

How do we settle this dispute?
---<--@


Madness