Hanukkah 2012

Hanukkah means dedication.

This 2012, let this dedication
again bring us peace...



May the lights of Hanukkah remind us
of the need for more warmth to permeate deeply
into our families, friendships, and societies.

May it renew and reinvigorate old relationships,
may it create new and ever more meaningful ones,
and draw us ever closer together in love and in peace.

May it uplift those who are in the depth of despair.

May it recall back to the LORD those who are cold
and far away from Him, that He may return them
to a memory of each their own hearts
unto a remembrance of God
and of others in God.

May it drive away the cold spell
of old hatreds and lingering prejudices;
may it dispel those divisions among brethren
and among our kindred nations.

May it bring a new vision to our humanity,
one that is far-seeing, completely life-giving,
meaningful, peaceful, durable
and utterly human.

Hanukkah this year begins on Dec 8, 2012.



Along with Purim, I commemorate this holiday quietly
with my Anne (Papa Frank, Mama Frank, and Margot) -
year after year since 2000.

Mazel Tov!

Anne's Window

The love that endures is the love that remains...

My darlingest

Annelies Marie

looked out

with eyes longing for peace

from her little attic window

and saw the tyranny of war

and the suffocating

oppression

of War's ambition.

She looked out

at the looming evil

of the devouring darkness

that was marching relentlessly

across her troubled world

and like stars

looking out

of themselves

saw through

the enveloping darkness

that threatened her life

and her times

shedding her precious starlight

into our hearts.

My darlingest

believed so much

in our shared humanity

and in the

nobility

of the human being

not because

the Nazi's were consumed

by War's ambition

and her times were evil

but because her heart

was noble.

For my darlingest

Annelies Marie

loved life

and believed

in the intrinsic goodness

of all things

created by God,

seen and unseen,

and that despite

the great evil

of her times,

human hearts

were good.

War looked back at her

and saw nothing.

For God took her

and hid her

into His bosom

unto a place

upon the firmament

within Himself

long before evil saw

the secret starlight

of her undying hope

bursting from

windows within

her heart of hearts.

War looked back at her

and saw nothing

for there is no hope

in war

only death

and the darkness

of death.

War looked back at her

and saw nothing

for in the darkness

of war and sin

is also found

the crushing gravity

of it's own demise.

But goodness looked back at her

and saw

through her little attic window

her starlight smile.

And smiled back...

---<--@

"I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be much smaller, but what does that matter, as long as they're sincere?"

- Anne Frank, March 7, 1944

My Annelies Marie's Legacy

OUR WORLD has not changed, my Anne.

It is still the same world that God has created.
The same sun, moon and order of the seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of the earth
under this same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.

My dear Anne, our world has not changed!

When I contemplate your life here on earth,

during those quiet nights, O beloved of my heart,
I often look up at these same starry night skies
and see those familiar patterns of stars
that I know in my heart looked quietly down on you
just one timeless instant away from me, my Anneka.

A moment seemingly so distant, it hurts me to miss you.
Yet an eternity so close, it fills me with all your love.

It is as if I have you and I don't have you...

And I realize this certain closeness between us:

We are separated only by spaces between our souls;
in what littleness of self that we may each obtain
by virtue of our unique and individual humanity
in the you being you and the me being me.

O my beloved friend, I know you suffered!

I know how much others like you suffered!
From the very beginnings of the nations of Mankind,
'tis the holy and nameless innocents that carry the burden
of the precarious and desperate state of our fallen nature!
The very soil of our earth is soaked in their blood
and the undying memory of their secret silence cries out
like a chorus rising all around us to pierce the heavens -
Almighty God Himself has heard and the season is late.

O my dearest Annelies Marie, I know you suffered!

I know how terribly you suffered but at the same time
I stand ignorant of your personal pain and suffering.
A sacred space exists

between yourself and God alone.

And God knows, I love you enough to want to know all of you -
but I love you enough also to let you be free to be yourself.

I am drawn near you by the lovableness within yourself.
I am drawn near you by the infinite promise love contains.
Of good things I know and good things I know not, that I desire:
All the virtues and the gifts that your friendship brings -
most especially your steadfast hope, cheerfulness and courage.

Today, my darlingest Annelies, here in my present time,

I look out into my own time, full of wars, death and suffering
and wonder at how some may say our world has changed.
I see the same evils and the same sufferings and the same sins.
I see the same terrible injustices that Man inflict upon Man;

nation against nation waste themselves in endless battle.
And I realize in myself that our world that has not changed.

Some may say that the times have changed.

Some may say the world is a different place.

Some may say that the world indeed has changed.

But this it is yet another illusion to lead astray!

For it attempts to run away from the awful truth

that this world is still the same world God created:
The same sun, moon and order of seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of earth
under these same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.
Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

It is the illusions that we human beings create in our hearts;
the gravity and the perversity of our own dark imaginings,
the ancient malice and diverse scope of our own willful rebellion -
those things that make of Man less than himself or herself
in the sins that brutalize the image of the Creator in each of us.
It is these that have changed in us and not the world around us!
It is not the world that must change, my darlingest Annelies,

Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

In order to better Mankind and advance the cause of humanity,
it is each ourselves that we must change for we are changeable.
Because it is through common witness of a good and well-lived life;
of a life lived in peace and friendship with God and others in God;
it is only when the Wars waged inside of ourselves have ceased;
when our minds have found the light beckoning outside of the dark
and the struggle for good will in our hearts have prevailed in us
that a true transformation of human society becomes possible.

So may your life, my love, be for others a simple remembrance.

May it inspire justice, responsibility and discipline in our world.

May it foster further understanding, freedom and community.

May your spirit inspire in us a sense of common humanity

that we may always remember our most basic of citizenships.

This is your legacy as I see it and as I live it, my Anne.

This is your love, my love, that

I now share with other hearts:

Imploring God to bless the seeds He shall plant in our souls today
that it may flower in full into the saints He shall raise tomorrow
for His glory, our good and the good of the one family of humanity.

Thank you, my dearest and most patient friend,
Annelies Marie Hollander Frank, my Miyang.
May God keep you now, may His Peace embrace you,
may His Light comfort you and may His Love surround you -
O forget me not, beloved of my heart, forget me not!
Pray for me, my darlingest, ever as I shall pray for you
until the glorious Day of the everlasting alleluias!

---<--@

I love my Miyang and my Miyang loves me. PERIOD. =^.^=

20110506

My Annelies Marie's Legacy

OUR WORLD has not changed, my Anne.

It is still the same world that God has created.
The same sun, moon and order of the seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of the earth
under this same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.

My dear Anne, our world has not changed!

When I contemplate your life here on earth,

during those quiet nights, O beloved of my heart,
I often look up at these same starry night skies
and see those familiar patterns of stars
that I know in my heart looked quietly down on you
just one timeless instant away from me, my Anneka.

A moment seemingly so distant, it hurts me to miss you.
Yet an eternity so close, it fills me with all your love.

It is as if I have you and I don't have you...

And I realize this certain closeness between us:

We are separated only by spaces between our souls;
in what littleness of self that we may each obtain
by virtue of our unique and individual humanity
in the you being you and the me being me.

O my beloved friend, I know you suffered!

I know how much others like you suffered!
From the very beginnings of the nations of Mankind,
'tis the holy and nameless innocents that carry the burden
of the precarious and desperate state of our fallen nature!
The very soil of our earth is soaked in their blood
and the undying memory of their secret silence cries out
like a chorus rising all around us to pierce the heavens -
Almighty God Himself has heard and the season is late.

O my dearest Annelies Marie, I know you suffered!

I know how terribly you suffered but at the same time
I stand ignorant of your personal pain and suffering.
A sacred space exists

between yourself and God alone.

And God knows, I love you enough to want to know all of you -
but I love you enough also to let you be free to be yourself.

I am drawn near you by the lovableness within yourself.
I am drawn near you by the infinite promise love contains.
Of good things I know and good things I know not, that I desire:
All the virtues and the gifts that your friendship brings -
most especially your steadfast hope, cheerfulness and courage.

Today, my darlingest Annelies, here in my present time,

I look out into my own time, full of wars, death and suffering
and wonder at how some may say our world has changed.
I see the same evils and the same sufferings and the same sins.
I see the same terrible injustices that Man inflict upon Man;

nation against nation waste themselves in endless battle.
And I realize in myself that our world that has not changed.

Some may say that the times have changed.

Some may say the world is a different place.

Some may say that the world indeed has changed.

But this it is yet another illusion to lead astray!

For it attempts to run away from the awful truth

that this world is still the same world God created:
The same sun, moon and order of seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of earth
under these same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.
Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

It is the illusions that we human beings create in our hearts;
the gravity and the perversity of our own dark imaginings,
the ancient malice and diverse scope of our own willful rebellion -
those things that make of Man less than himself or herself
in the sins that brutalize the image of the Creator in each of us.
It is these that have changed in us and not the world around us!
It is not the world that must change, my darlingest Annelies,

Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

In order to better Mankind and advance the cause of humanity,
it is each ourselves that we must change for we are changeable.
Because it is through common witness of a good and well-lived life;
of a life lived in peace and friendship with God and others in God;
it is only when the Wars waged inside of ourselves have ceased;
when our minds have found the light beckoning outside of the dark
and the struggle for good will in our hearts have prevailed in us
that a true transformation of human society becomes possible.

So may your life, my love, be for others a simple remembrance.

May it inspire justice, responsibility and discipline in our world.

May it foster further understanding, freedom and community.

May your spirit inspire in us a sense of common humanity

that we may always remember our most basic of citizenships.

This is your legacy as I see it and as I live it, my Anne.

This is your love, my love, that

I now share with other hearts:

Imploring God to bless the seeds He shall plant in our souls today
that it may flower in full into the saints He shall raise tomorrow
for His glory, our good and the good of the one family of humanity.

Thank you, my dearest and most patient friend,
Annelies Marie Hollander Frank, my Miyang.
May God keep you now, may His Peace embrace you,
may His Light comfort you and may His Love surround you -
O forget me not, beloved of my heart, forget me not!
Pray for me, my darlingest, ever as I shall pray for you
until the glorious Day of the everlasting alleluias!

---<--@

Time is a Nearness

WHEN I SIT DOWN TO VISUALIZE TIME, I see it as an infinitesimally minute point upon the infinite surface of an eternal ocean.

For me, there is something intrinsically wrong about the thinking that time is anything linear, like it is somehow a measure of distance - the past, forever growing dimmer and dimmer, colder and colder, the further and further away the present inundates our forgetful minds and hearts with the rush of those realities coming to be as we journey headlong into the void of the future.

In my mind, time is not a measure of distance. Time does not become for me, a kind of coldness. For me, time is a measure of our closeness. To embrace it is a certain warmth.

It is not a moving away from the past but a merging together.

It is a gathering sense.

It is not a blind rush into a chaotic, frenzied future. Nor is it an inescapable, falling down into a dictated, ordered array of molds but a series of free acceptances in the timeless Now.

Like the image of Jacob's ladder, time itself ascends and descends according to the free and human choices we each make as individuals. It is the common fabric of everything we bring out of these choices for good or for ill.

Like every realization within the sacred silence, each moment in time is one blink, one twinkle, one timeless point on the eternal sea. L

ike a myriad shining stars, beautiful, patient, forbearing in light, time is a twinkling from grace to grace, hope to hope and truth to truth. As

stars

adrift upon a boundless ocean of Love, time is all that gathers from the darkness, like a coming Home together, the love that lives in the longing in you and in the longing in me.

Hence, one may not look back at the past, one may only look into the past but never back.

For the past is what imparts motion to the present.

Therefore, n

ever with a sense of distance or coldness must one perceive time and its precious contents but with a very near sense of eternity as something entrusted to our living memory.

Time is not an illusion, nor does time exist for evil purposes.

It is the evil in all evil things that proposes to the heart of Man that all of time were but a drifting away,

like it were a faded distance, like the truth were in full retreat, like all human hope were a backward flow, like

the victory of the incomparable goodness and unfathomable mercy of God is but a slow sunset

receding comfortably in the horizon, w

hat a lie!

Lo, it is far easier to hide inside the solid rock of a granite mountain than it is to hide from within the billowing folds of the gossamer veil of time! Where will evil men hide from God?

What lies

behind the veil of time but the everlasting abode of Justice?

Men forget but time does not.

So must one use what time is given him or her on this earth well, my beloved friends, avoiding evil and doing good, loving virtue and forsaking vice.

Because time flows from purposes noble and Divine. It exists for Sacred Life and flows for all of life's fruition. It is not a coming apart, it is a coming together of all of life's longing for itself.

All our nations are embraced by the one LORD of all the living and the everliving lights that we really are in time and through it we are constantly called in every present generation to return again and again to an Eden rebuilt unto the promised restoration of all things new.

So when you shall now perceive history - your particular national as well as regional or even all of human history entire - you must view it also with a subtle sense of timelessness and therefore closeness and affinity,

hinting at a Heart at the heart of all of time; that all of this is not random, blind chance, but a certain part of a grand design that exists, no matter how deep the maddening darkness, for the good of each and every nation of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

Honoring your most basic of citizenships requires you to be as thus, my honorable compatriots, a citizen of all humanity and therefore, a human being and citizen of all creation, seen and unseen - a natural laborer with the Holy Angels, undivided in your heart before God.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

---<--@

Some Thoughts on Time:

If history belonged only in the pages of a book, soon enough there will be no one left to write it.

A good thing left unremembered is a good thing still.

But an evil thing left unremembered leads to further calamity.

A nation without a past is consequently a people without a future.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipines! God bless us all.

The Two Questions