What is your world view?

Our Philippines,
when we emerge to become a developing Country
(and we will because we must)
will emerge into a nascent family of nations -

each of these nations endowed by God with both
- a hope that is in common with ours
as well as an experience particular to each their peoples,
shaping for that nation also
- a hope which is particular to them.

Our emerging in these present days,
as we are now just learning,
depend just as much upon our own strength and self-reliance
as upon our national view of the world -
how we belong to it, and how we plan to integrate with it -
therefore, one of the first things I should like to ask our candidates,
both executive and legislative,
is this -

What is your world view?

For if, God-helping,
we become the mature Republic
the LORD is calling us to be,
this sense of a world view shall guide us
in our treatment of other nations -
so may the LORD preserve us from vanity
that we may as a nation hope to prevail
against the errors of the past age.
---<--@

Salutation #165

This picture unnerves me...

It is however, the unseen reality that lives underneath our visible, external reality... one that can bubble up any time, any where.

Let us think about this when we sit down to meditate about realistic disarmament for our nations...

A safer world (in our times) is not a world without weapons but a world with lesser fear of them. (Fear of weapons generate more weapons, while ignorance of them encourages more war.)

Therefore, disarmament - nuclear disarmament above all - is (ultimately) a Justice issue (as opposed to political) and one that is planetary in scope.



(Peace and Disarmament)

PEACE
is directly related to disarmament
only to the degree that the spirit of War is banished
from the souls of our nations (in plural form).

Disarmament leads to strength
but only to the degree that peace is understood
and accepted by the many, and therefore, by the all.

Disarmament by itself,
without a vision of a clear destiny
is - of itself - unsure.

   (Defense and disarmament
   are not opposed but are [qualitatively] consonant
   to each other.

   Therefore,
   a disarmament that is unsure
   is also consequently an action that is unsafe.)

It only seems to lead us to weakness,
and this weakness is a symptom of a sickness
that no nation wants but - in truth -
all nations need.
---<--@

Salutation #142

(Perceiving the Path)

When we think
to plan for our Country,
let us not think to plan

for a year, or two, or five,
or ten, or twenty.

When we plan
for this one Republic,
we are thinking of perceiving
- a path -
that opens a way
into forever.

So let us not be
so limited
by what years we posses (and perceive)
as individuals rather,
let all these years merge
- seamlessly, freely, lovingly -
into that great and fruitful longevity
that is our noble Republic undertaking;
the labor of our generations

to the very last of our generations!

Indeed,
let everything
lead into everything -
spirit unto Spirit

and truth unto Truth -
from hope to hope

and strength to strength -
because to everything

and in everything under heaven
there is a place and a season
in this Republic of ours.

   (So that
   if it is truly a good thing,
   and if this truly good thing matters
   to the welfare of our people
   from least to the greatest
   then, my compatriots,
   it may only be a matter of when.)

- selah -

Let us bear this now,
in mind and heart -

When we plan
for our Country,
we must plan - as if -
the entire width and breadth
of its glorious lifetime
was ours today.
---<--@



A year

is a measure of distance
only if it is imparted with a certain motion
- towards or away -
depends upon each thy own heart,
how empty or how full.

Salutation #117

A citizen is not a citizen 

- if it were not for other citizens -

not unlike him or herself.

---<--@

(Focus)

NO MATTER HOW DIFFICULT 

the evils of the present time 

may be allowed by the LORD, our King, to become,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise, 

as one Filipino nation, as one Republic undertaking,

there are only two ways we can go - 

two summits we can set our hearts upon -

two lineages we can willingly follow -

two visions we can from heaven obtain -

two freedoms we can humanly share -

two clocks we can live to abide by -

two destinies we can fight and die for.

And of the two -

only one is superior to the other,

only one is faithful to our keeping,

only one is real.

Focus determines the outcome.

People are poor 

- who have accepted -

the reality of being poor.

A nation is defeated 

- who have come to accept -

its own defeat.

Truly, truly, 

no nation can so thoroughly deplete the spirit 

and exhaust the will of another nation 

as completely as it can 

its own self!

Therefore, 

abide in thy fellowship 

as human beings and citizens to each other -

a keeper and friend:

Do not be too quick to judge,

do not expect rights you are not willing to give others,

do not rail against the humanity of others

while feigning ignorance of your own,

harbor neither hatred nor division in thy one heart of hearts,

and never ally thy own soul to the adulterous will of War

and assume evil against the nations of the children of Mankind

(for all nations, as they are purposed and made by God,
exists singularly for the LORD's own human causes
for reasons other than the triumph of evil).

Come into today!

We can not live on the past,

the past can not feed and shelter our people.

Neither can we live on our problems,

our troubles by themselves do not make us complete.

There is only the present...

And so -

IF we are complete in our remembrances

- the good in our every moment shall be complete -

and today shall be sufficient
for all our tomorrows.

Alleluia!
---<--@

Soul of Country