Starshine, this is for you - if not today, tomorrow.
Dreamer of Dreams
(You know, for days now, I've been going through what to say to each of you - Class of 2012 - in my native Philippines in particular and across to our kindred nations in general.
As you know, the year 2012 is a momentous year - it is a year of crossroads and expectations.
I wanted to say something formal, something meaningful, something from me to you. But for days now, I've been struggling to put the words down for you.
So here's what I am going to do - I will speak extemporaneously.
I will make this message a personal one.)
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First of all, congratulations!
Whatever stage in your life you are now witnessing the beginning of, you totally deserve it!
So own up to it - embrace and accept this victory you have gained for yourself - appreciate the moment - humbly, deeply, with gratitude.
Do not forget to review the virtues that brought you to this moment and make a memory of them as well, praise the LORD for His enabling grace that God may multiply your successes.
Plant your feet firmly upon the ground of the truth, as they are made plain, present and manifest to the eye of thy heart, and rise upon the wings of thy prayer towards God and the realization of all thy hopes.
Dear Starsine, commencement exercises imply by their very essence - a beginning. It is a way for you to remember well a great milestone in your life. For life is lived in stages, each leading to the other.
Thus, however long each of these phases, good or bad, seems to each of thee - every ending continues on to a new beginning.
For it must.
Therefore, forward looking is what you must always be. Remember, your youth is in thy spirit and learning is forever.
Looking back will serve only to embitter thee.
Indeed, there were good times (as well as bad) and necessary farewells, but the past (as it was precisely experienced by thee) is not a place in which we can visit.
Long for good times and reunions but align these longings with the flight of thy hopes; anchor them not onto the sinking of the void.
The past, once it is lived, is forever no more - everything is in the Now. It is here in the Now where constant remembrance dwells, to carry all true things forward and across into tomorrow.
In this way, all true things carry all true things into the reality of the present time. In this way, we carry each other by each good ideal we represent and by each good thing that we do.
You must always remember this - those places in thy past are places still and the people in thy past are people still regardless of the intervening years. Time is allied to the meek and the humble.
Come alive to the reality of unseen things!
Bitterness is not for thee, precious Starshine, it is for those who refuse to learn and to move forward into forever. It is for those who stubbornly seek to strive alone and without counsel; entangled in the snares of their own making - theirs is a useless, seasonless, tasteless, flightless existence.
You are to love them anyway, pray for them especially, and be a sibling to them still.
Be spiritual. Do not be divided in thy heart. Be whole.
Exercise a prudent discernment and let go of the past times and past hurts without letting go of all thy past loves - for verily, love as it pertains to itself knows of neither limit nor time.
Be brave enough to carry all that you love into thy present and therefore, into thy future and you shall make of yourself, by the grace of God, both wise and happy, in that order.
Yea, uncertainty.
I want you to savor it.
For this uncertainty exists for each of you.
There is an air of uncertainty - here - that surrounds and permeates each of you, Class of 2012, like an invisible embrace. It is the atmosphere of your expectations. Remember always, it is yours.
This uncertainty exists for each of you, because you - and only you - can muster the courage, virtue and determination to break through its infinite layers and discover your own powers of flight.
For whether you know it or not, this air of uncertainty is the air you breathe to give texture and shape, feeling and intesity to your own dreams and life to your greatest ambitions.
This is the breathe that transforms - The breathing of the brave.
It is the aspiration of hope that propels the cycles of faith and love to empower with reality those prayers that move the arm that moves the mountains.
Therefore, may your prayers bless your spirit with the strength to rise above the challanges of these times.
No one has the right to burden each of your life with expectations than your own indomitable spirit. So know yourselves.
Present yourselves before God lovingly. Be true. Be happy. Be always in love.
Be peacemakers.
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Dreamer of Dreams