Salutation #160

Let us meditate on each our loving relationships: Wonder at the fact that we are able to love (and recognize that we are able to love).

Because it is no small miracle in itself that we are made to be aware that we are in love at all.

If faith is light, then hope gives it brightness, but it is love that gives to it sharpness and clarity.

Love sees far, overcoming both distance and time.

When love holds us near, we perceive a sense of the timeless: And when we hold near to our love it hold us near to Itself (God Himself).

All lasting things are preserved by it (for the vigilance of the LORD preserves all and seeks to dwell in all, neither sleeping nor waking, being Eternal).

In this embrace, our spirits are quickened. And in this prayer, brothers and sisters, we mean to encounter that amazing embrace.

(Litany of Love)

Have mercy on us, dear Jesus! From behind mere accidents of bread and wine, You peer at our world so full of war and sin.

Incline our hearts to Thee, dear Savior, that we might better serve the cause of Thy peace.

And as we journey together as Thy Church in this world (during the season of Lent add: towards Thy Holy Mountain of Easter), renew us in our togetherness and faith. Make us hungry for God and thirsty for the right things of God, dear Jesus, out of love for Thee!

Deign to bless us in our nations as keeper and friend, one to another, and prosper us in our hopes to build a better world.

AMEN.

(God gives to each of us 

principal friends - in heaven and on the earth - 

to walk this life with us and to be our special supports 

- they are to each of us His signal graces - 

and inspire us like the many bright stars in the skies over our souls.

Each their life - past, present and forever - 

and the unique way the pattern of their lives 

touches and illuminates each our own - 

guide us gently, naturally, and surely 

along the common way of human happiness 

[joined with all human beings within and across all human nations]

and in particular [for those of us who are called by Christ into Christ], 

up along the mountain of Christian felicity.)

- selah -

(Here follows my personal pattern [only] as an example)

God the Father in heaven, I love You.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, I love You.

God the Holy Spirit, I love You.

O dearest LORD, my one, triune Perfection, I love You.

Holy Mary, Queen of my heart, I love you.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Patron Saint of the Suffering Addict, I love you.

Blessed Jacinta Marto, Flower of Fatima, I love you.

Blessed Francisco Marto, Helper of my Lord, I love you.

Sister Lucia, Servant of God, I love you.

Saint Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila, I love you.

Saint Therese of Liseaux, I love you.

Saint Josemaria Escriva, I love you.

Saint Anthony of Padua, I love you.

Saint Peter, I love you.

Saint Paul, I love you.

Holy Father Dominic de Guzman, I love you.

Holy Father Francis of Assisi, I love you.

Saint Lawrence the deacon, I love you.

Saint Dymphna, I love you.

My darlingest Annelies Marie Frank, I love you.

All you Holy Innocents of God, I love you.

All you Holy Souls in Purgatory, I love you.

All my family and friends, I love you.

O my Philippines, I love you.

All you nations of Mankind, I love you.

Angel Caritas, my guardian dear, I love you.

Saint Michael the Archangel, I love you.

All you Saints of God, I love you.

All you Holy Angels of the LORD, I love you.

---<--@

This prayer can be said anytime, anywhere 

in order to call us back to our right and wholesome relationships

but best place to say this prayer is before Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration.

To be in love is to be aware. To be aware is to be alive!

The Question

An angel asked me, "...and what do I love, O heart?" For I longed to know.

It led me to a shop and showed me a thing I desired for myself but could not yet afford. Something I knew I knew but did not really think about that much.

"I love all these things that you love, O heart, that leads you to be good", the angel said to me.

"I love all the good clothes that was made for you, I love the cell phone that you'd so wished for so much, oh and that laptop - I love that as well - for you, O heart."

"So how do you love me in return?" The angel's question seem to echo from deep into my being for the lesson has now penetrated me indelibly right into my heart.

There was silence:

"You shall love the LORD thy God as one LORD alone".

"Make peace with the all of creation: Divide it not. Say peace to the river, to the sky, to the earth, to the animals (and the trees) of the earth and the fishes of the seas, to thy nations good will and to all thy fellow human beings, life and abundance. Do this if you love me."
---<--@

An Angel Weeping

The greatest trick the Devil ever played is the trick that the Devil never was; that evil and the corruption of sin, though it dwells as an infirmity in the hearts of the children of Mankind, is never a disease encouraged by him nor he and his angels therefore, accountable for their thievery and murder before God.



I SAW
in my heart of hearts
an angel weeping,
saddened but not bowed,
shedding holy tears,
shed for Love.

"O hellfire!",
said the presence
within the comforting silence
of our hearts' mingling,
"The greatest abomination
is not thy existence!"

"I weep not
for thy blasphemy
and the abominations
that you relentlessly hurl
in the face of my Creator."

"I weep
with tears
that is shed
like the rain
filling the rivers
that flow in time
from the golden deep
of the Eternity of my LORD."

"I weep
because I am wounded
but not by thy evil
O reprobate sink
of wasted creation."

"I weep
not because of thee
O hellfire
for I am hurt not
by the bankrupt nature
of the Devil and his demons
and the reprobate men
who condemn themselves
by their unwavering
and immovable
allegiance
to the everlasting death
that was decreed
from Eternity."

"I weep
because of Love
knowing the unbearable hurt
of the terrible affliction
that thy rebellion
have inevitably caused
the most beneficent nature
of my most loving and most merciful
one LORD and only Creator."

"O hellfire,
thy existence
is a curse,
right by Justice,
but a transgression
against the infinite
dignity of Love!"

"I weep
because I am hurt
but not by thee,
O hellfire,
I am sorrowful
not for thy eternal woe
and the crushing depths
of the gravity of thy fiery defeat;
not for thy reprobate evil
do I shed these tears."

"I weep
because I am hurt
and I am hurt
because my God is hurt,
my LORD and my only Creator."

"I weep
with all the love
that longs for Itself
and I shall weep
profusely
in great torrents
like the rain
to fill the rivers
that flow in time
into you, O nations,
into you, O my beloved,
into those new seasons of life
that advance the cause
of suffering Mankind
and serve my one LORD
being like unto my God,
extending the glorious will
of my divine Sovereign
until my only Creator,
most forgiving
and with kindness
unsurpassed
wipes away the tears
at the springtime beginning
of all things new."

"And thou
O hellfire
and all thy
countless
abominations
that fight against
the rivers that flow
becomes to me
a forsaken season
shed like these tears
and overwhelmed like the darkness,
at the final winter of my memory,
and the daybreak of the everlasting peace."

"Alleluia, glory to our Creator,
holy, holy, holy is our one Sovereign,
alleluia to the LORD!
Beloved to God are those that weep
and labor in their hope,
dwelling always in good will
and believing with conviction of faith
that all will be well,
all will be well, peace,
amen, alleluia."
---<--@

(produced 20081024)


Sun and Rain

Salutation #5

Freedom is to know freedom.



(Freedom)

PEACE, I salute you.

Even the smallest of lights
shines in the darkness -
so shift your focus, my friend,
if you haven't already done so
for each and every good thing counts
regardless of the darkness.

What is praiseworthy is right action.
It is what makes us distinct from the darkness -
it is ignition -
the actual point of contact
between human will and divine grace.
Right action is, in the painting by Michelangelo
of Adam reaching out to God
with their fingers extending out to each other,
that bright spark at the imagined point of contact
between the freedom of Man and the freedom of God:
Right action always results in good works.

What motivates the will to act
must also be what inspires the heart to love.
Therefore, evil action is always the result
of false inspiration -
the idolatry of sin!
So if we are to do good,
we must first learn to love the good -
and shun all that is evil.

For we profit not from evil,
my dear friend,
but from the good;
our motivation being derived
from purposes that are good,
our hopes being anchored upon things
that are true and therefore, good,
and the wings of our surrender to prayer
being ever vigilant and discerning
- in its ascent -
to the one Giver of all good things.

For evil no longer hold us captive.
We have come to know it
and forever bless the LORD for His Light.
Therefore, we seek now to unknow it
upon paths of repentance
that lead away from darkness
and into peace -
peace in our hearts -
peace with our fellow human beings -
peace with all of heaven -
and peace with our God.
---<--@

(produced 20090629)

Salutation #4

Of the common human needs that make us responsible to each other as citizens, one to another, there are nine: Hunger, Thirst, Clothing, Shelter, Personal Security (i.e. Security of Person and Property), Basic (or Functional) Literacy, Just Society, Authentic Human Freedom, and Meaningful Existence.

(Light)

PEACE, I salute you.

Evil which is poison, when once by mischief,

allowed entrance into that Kingdom within

becomes the malice that corrupt the purity

of the human will's intention for good -

dividing the one House of that Man within

against the Sanctuary of the LORD in the heart

making the soul vulnerable against itself

inclining fallen Man to sinful things.

For malice is the corruption that is sown

upon the ground of the human heart

to become those manifold and diverse tares

which are the vicious habits of sin

that overgrow with choking weeds

that evergreen garden of the human soul

where we take our walks with our God

in the stillness of our wakeful prayers;

that same timeless garden

that one must through God's good graces

cultivate with much virtue and light.

And sin is a lie that creeps

upon the threshold of the heart

seeking to assault and overthrow

the reign of our sovereign LORD within

that it may slowly overcome with its darkness

the golden blue of our native skies.

Now, our LORD being the one God Who is

revealed unto all of our shared humanity

in complete and utter finality

through the Sacred Humanity

of the Incarnate Word,

Who is the Second Person

of the one triune Perfection -

our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,

our one Truelight, our highest Exemplar,

and First of our First Magnitudes,

is the self-same God Whose Presence is

for all creatures, seen and unseen,

that one, holy and sustaining Light,

when once in exile time completely denied

by the arrival in the soul of Man

of an absolute and irrevocable choice

to embrace and to obey the will of evil,

which is the will of sin and the ambition of war,

become in absolute reality manifest

as a smoldering and inescapable wrath

for when the Daystar Sun is completely eclipsed

by rise of Wormwood, that false star of Satan,

this darkness shall by its terrible descent,

completely consume into dust and ashes

all that remains in that Man,

both body and soul,

suffering the first death

which is permanent

as well as the second death

which is everlasting.

What motivates Man in the heart

is either one - good or evil -

and so therefore, that tree of exile

that from our faded Eden cast

the singular lineage of Man

is that self-same malice that

in the garden of our hearts with God

must first be uprooted

and its poisonous darkness

overthrown from within our souls

that evil and its corrupting lie

may from our eternal good be cut off.

This is how we shall acquire

one standard of Liberty for all.

Therefore, let us be good,

beloved friends and constant companions,

let good things motivate us,

let us be a people of the good,

let us seek to dwell on true things,

knowing by heart unto where

and from Whom all good things come,

persevering always in prayer,

both in private but above all together,

with the seen as well as the unseen,

thus, becoming intimate with the Intimate,

and seek no more to profit from evil things

nor make provision in time for evil things

in the timeless abode of our hearts

dwelling with God, alone with the Alone.

For it is human weakness that is forgivable

but malice once by the Spirit of God challenged

when yet willfully and unrelentingly embraced

become that final, festering, poisonous rot

that shall turn into ashes

the timeless life of the spirit from within

that it may forever join Satan

and all that condemn itself to the hell

that shall soon claim all evil things.

Sin that is embraced with such utter finality

is indeed, truly unforgivable

not that our LORD is not merciful,

for our God is a merciful LORD

and kind to all creatures,

large and small, seen and unseen.

It is evil that is without virtue

and once made into a god

in place of our most beneficent LORD,

shall then execute its lethal reign

upon that unhappy soul.

Verily, none of us

should like to question motives

yet when motives are questionable,

indeed, one can not help but question them.

This is a root cause of division.

And so let us ever be mindful

of that constant counsel

that any division within our one peace

is the beginning of all evil.

What we should always question,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

are our methods together,

that we may never cease from seeking

to refine the many ways in which

the abundant grace of our God

that we though unworthy of such a good

have so abundantly merited through our Lord,

Jesus Christ, the one Redeemer of Mankind,

that we by our willing hands and loving hearts,

may become increasingly useful instruments

that diffuse as light into the darkness

this unmerited grace of God

shining for all souls without distinction

that God's loving Presence in time

may be a paternal comfort and a constant help

to our suffering humanity here in our poor world

so needful of heaven's timeless embrace

that hearts may be one in God,

and peace may be all in All.

We are human beings

and therefore,

we are a becoming in time.

We share in our humanity,

a lack that can only be filled by the timeless.

A lack that is felt in our souls

as a reaching out to God

and manifest in our bodies

as common human needs.

And so, lacking, needful, bereft,

we are come to a knowledge of God

and of each other in God.

Verily, as our faith sets us apart,

our hopes join us together,

indeed, this is what makes us truly human -

our need for God and for each other -

and so in our belonging together in God

we must come together to build

through these, the generations of life,

those truly human communities

where all roads constantly lead to the dawn

towards the morning that return Mankind

to the one Love that has forever kept

all of our nations close to Its own bosom.

A society of need is a human society.

It is a society that goes hand in hand

with a government of gratitude.

Therefore, we must profess

a politics of thankfulness,

being a people of hope,

and work to enable a culture of peace

of which truth must be begun

in the darkness of exile time

by the first of the generations of life,

which is this, our generation

as well as those members of the elder generations

who are similarly called by our one LORD

and whose wise and steadfast companionship

our good God has so generously blessed us with,

ennobling us by the substance of their experiences

and the strength of their years.

War is a tension that is insufferable in this new age.

But hope is also a tension,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

and one that is more apt to liberate our nations

from the mire of poverty and despair.

It is an expression of God's own peace

which is the Peace of Jesus Christ

and an extension of the one paradigm of the peace

which contain in the one whole truth of itself

the reality of a promise of old to all our nations

made by the one God of our Father Abraham

that the numberless stars that we are each called to be,

shall bless the communities of Mankind -

when we shall in the darkness of exile time

by each of our own life's width and breadth

through our LORD's unfaltering Light be made to shine

for each other in, with, through and for God and Country -

here upon this, our poor world,

upon this inhabited earth in the grip of the midnight of war,

as a labor of hope upon this last wintering,

upon a time of falling tears.

Finally, as regards to our one peace,

we can not, as a whole, abide by lukewarm halves -

we must each enable each other through God's grace

to profess this as a one whole paradigm,

one whole truth in the universes within our souls,

one whole truth in our families,

one whole truth in our local communities,

one whole truth in our national communities,

one whole truth in our regions,

one whole truth in our continents,

and one whole truth in our one planetary whole -

in reality, wholes upon wholes aligned towards life,

built on winged truth, an ascendant motion in time,

advancing the cause of life which is lasting happiness

through civilizations that with our nameless and honest labors

rise like incense to give glory to the God of all life

as the one family of the nations of (the children of) Mankind.

If we shall give war an inch,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

if we shall willingly allow

a segment of our shared humanity

to become vulnerable to evil things,

if we freely and recklessly abandon

our Lord's poor,

in the weak, the defenseless,

the displaced, the dispossessed,

the widow, the stranger, the orphan,

we shall indeed soon find

that war and the ambition of war

has again overtaken us all

with the final defeat which is its curse.

For what war does to one, war does to all.

So let our one peace forever remain, one whole one.

---<--@

(produced 20090128)

Salutation #3

Darkness is but the darkness if it does not lead to the light.

(Darkness)

To the numberless lights 
of our kindred belonging,
greetings of sincere hope
and good will -
my love and prayers:

There is evil in our days,
as it was in those days of old.

Evil where it is allowed to endure
into every present time
to stand against the line (of our nations)
established in the Now of the moment
is an enemy that is never meant
to defeat the will of the good (nor it's Source).

For the arrangement of all past things
in every (individual, unrepeatable) person's life
like a romance between human choice
and the serendipity of God's grace
is always intended in such a way
by the beneficence of Divine Providence
so as to culminate into every present time
which is always sufficient in its own Day
with regards to the particular evils
- that - each and every individual soul
(this is equally true in the life of communities)
must in each their own time and place
learn to recognize and vanquish
by and through the grace of our LORD
in (support of) and with the support of our human communities,
(each in their own order and context, as wholes within wholes)
civic and religious, national and international (and beyond),
that exist for our (human) benefit
- in exile time (across the veil of time) -
to safeguard and foster our common good.

Should there be evil in our day,
even if the past had a large part to play
in its appearance in our present time,
indeed, it should not be here to give us reason
to conveniently dwell on the darkness of past things
(and allow our spirit to be absorbed into the darkness,
with hearts sunk into the unfeeling, unknowing nothingness
of the void of all things that never were).

- selah -

Where evil is allowed to endure
- into the present reality -
of souls and communities of souls,
it is so that we may learn in our own lives
how to effectively close the doors of past things.

Believe that evil endures
not to defeat the human being
but to allow him or her the unique opportunity
to recreate in every present moment
through God and with each other,
the beginnings of better, brighter
and nobler things (for all Mankind).

Peace.
---<--@

(produced 20081208)

A Prayer to Mary, Queen of Peace

O Immaculata!

My Mother and Queen of my Heart,

I love thee but do not deserve thee.
For it is the boundless mercy of God,
O Blessed Virgin Mary,
that made thee my Mother
and I thy unworthy son.

O Refuge of Sinners,
without whom I would perish,
I am thankful to God for thee!
O dearest Lady,
may my love and appreciation for thee grow,
by special grace of God,
with each day I walk this life with thee
in the path that our Savior has chosen for me.

O great Mother of God!
I humbly beseech thee,
give me strength against thy enemies
and allow me to praise and honor thee.
O glorious Leader!
Help of Christians, lead us to victory -
toward a new age of peace and renewal for our world
through the Eucharistic reign of Christ
in the hearts of all Christians
in the Name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

---<--@

(produced 20110304)

Salutation #2

If you seek peace, seek peace absolutely.

(One Whole Sky)

Look at our time today
and the world we move in
- everything about it -
is born of the will of war.

There is much despair
there is much suffering
as all our kindred peoples
labor through oceans of tears
our common human hopes

- forsaken -
in the darkness of our time.

Let us then take ownership
- of the status quo -
and instead of feeding
into war's evil ambition
- the near limitless -
potential of our own souls,
let us apply ourselves,
under the eternal vigilance
of our one Almighty God,
to the labor of each our Country
by our absolute turning away
from the descendant gravity
of war's evil ambition
into the ascendant direction
of the one whole peace
and build upon our civilization
the sheltering wings of God's peace
to serve and defend
the life of our common humanity
wheeling as numberless as the stars
shining across the midnight emptiness
of this season of the sky
toward the twilight breaking
of the new millennial age
and a better, kinder, safer, brighter world
for all men, women and children
- of every nation -
of the one covenant family
of the nations of (the children of) Mankind.
---<--@

(produced 20080914)

Salutation #1

Can we navigate the earth from heaven at night with just one star alone?

No, we will most certainly need more than one!

Truth is, the more stars we come to know (who comes to know us), the more complete our map of the sky, the more precise our direction...

Starshine, we are the stars.
---<--@

(Salute to the Stars)

To all my friends -

who are my companions

near or far, alone or with others,

known or known to God alone

who are - from always to always -

one kindred grace, joined in truth:

I salute you with much love
being fond of my desire to serve you

through what gift I have to give
that we may fulfill each our parts
as common vanguards of autumnal Eden
entrusted with the peace of our nations
being bound to the one promise of old
to become as numberless as the stars
and sanctify the hopes of our humanity
by bidding them, turn away from War.

Let War's ambitions remain in itself

having no particular truth of it's own;

comprehending not itself from itself
knowing nothing apart from nothing;

perceiving creation as darkness entire

and not the great wonder of living light
that amidst the vast emptiness of space
fill the silence of the void with glad tidings
that bear aloft our hope for human life
and the pursuit of life's great promise.

We shall stand for something!
---<--@

(produced 20080902)

On Remembrance

Remembrance
is a commandment of God
of all human nations.

Hence,
a lack of remembrance
breeds a certain contempt
of the sacred.

Either one draws away from the sacred,
placing it in a place - out of reach of the heart.

Or one becomes enraged by it,
making of it an enemy of the heart.

- selah -

A person who looks for God
who has not the remembrance of God in the heart
looks for Him in vain.

He or she may seek God
in the heavens or on the earth
and God shall nowhere be found
for that person.

The great scandal of this is
that this person may claim that God is not -
where in fact, he or she has closed the eye of the heart
to the Presence of the LORD in all things,
seen and unseen.

The remembrance of our war dead
(across our nations, civilian and military)
likewise belong to the realm of the sacred.

(For as the sacred fulfills all - and - draws all,
so must the quality of our timeless remembrance be
for all national remembrances are human remembrances
and rightfully belong to the common memory
of the spirit of our humanity.)

- selah -

In an increasingly materialistic society,
where God is being everywhere forgot,
- a healthy regard for the sacred -
soon becomes an uncommon virtue.

What lies beyond the veil of time,
where all unity must always proceed
(for it is in the spirit where all unity is begun),
in unseen realms beyond the nature and scope
of the physical and the temporal,
is where a healthy sense of sacred remembrance
grounds the human heart.

Where remembrance
is increasingly becoming scarce,
there shall in its place be a growing lack
of a sense of connection with history
and with each other.

For
all truly human relationships
are spiritual connections.
---<--@

(produced 20110710)

Salutation #159

The maturity of our peace, the strength of our nationhood, and the prosperity of our people, spiritual as well as material, determines the age of our Republic.

How we get there is a matter of the heart.



(International Day of Peace 2012)

Personal -

Peace is a quality in the spirit,
a sense of wholeness and belonging
that is independent of the brokenness and suffering
of the external world.

Simultaneously,
peace inspires in the soul
a genuine and unshakable love
of this inward sense of wholeness and belonging
as well as the total freedom to overcome
brokenness and suffering in one's self
and in others like the self.

It is that most fundamental human longing
to return to a condition of perfect safety and perfect rest;
a condition unto which we all, as human beings,
desire to ultimately return unto throughout our lives
and is at the heart of all human community.

It is neither a perfect freedom nor a perfect peace
but peace, where it is present, brings forth only peace.
---<--@

National -

Can you overcome the earth by yourself?

Can we hope to subdue the darkness of the unknown earth as individuals?

Can we hope to deter the violence and the chaos that dwells within the darkness by the law of family or tribe alone? Can either family or tribe defeat the ancient curse of War without being utterly consumed by it?

Can the imperative of the LORD to tame the unknown earth be done in the spirit of division? Can the inhabited earth ever be built with War in the heart?

Can the brightness of its vision for all Mankind be achieved - here - in the visible realms of the universe, by the spirit and the labors of Man, through the grace of God and the freedom of heaven, without the necessity of the nations?

What for are we?

We have a responsibility in these present days to remember... the craft of all nations is peace!

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.
---<--@

In every conflict, every nation that fights ultimately fights for every nation that fights because in the end, War is the ultimate enemy of all our nations.

Let us together reflect on this with retrospective clarity secure upon the vantage our generations now possess over the last great age of war.

The nobility of our arms determines its strength and not the other way around.

For violence hath no memory of itself because it is dead, only virtue lives and lives eternal.

Peace without arms - in an imperfect world - is improbable, without remembrance, impossible.

September 21 is the International Day of Peace.

Armed Freedom

During my time with you America,
I have often thought about you...

And during this difficult time,
I still think of you and pray you prevail
as we all must, as one family of nations, prevail
over the darkness that threatens our world
with madness.



O noble lady,
O valiant queen,
for whom do thou make
thy glorious stand?

For thou have
always beckoned
to me in my thoughts.

Art thou a sword to divide
a shield to deter, a spear to defeat -
a weapon of conquest?

Art thou a virtue to consider,
a light to lead, a guide to encourage -
a graceful lover of liberty?

For thou art a vigilance at my side
that give peace to our remembrances
and to my heart endows a spirit of duty
in times of peace and in times of war.

Do thou stand for some
and against others?

Nay, this thou most certainly am:

Thou art
the triumph that defends
from the not knowing thee.

For thy own truth
thou stands to guard the nation
that the nation may always be
from the many to the one
blessed with thee.
---<--@



Today is International Day of Democracy 2012.

We will at times differ,
but of the same heart we shall always be...

Opinions will divide us
to temper our thoughts
and strengthen our spirits
but our values will always remain
to unite us - when our unity -
calls for unity.

Freedom is to know freedom.
Democracy is to love it.

Salutation #158

Citizenship is in the soul - 'tis a seeking in the self -
an integral part of the blossoming of every human life.
So you breath it in your spirit, and you live it in your life

- you seek it like the motion of a love learning to love -
you long for it in yourself - until you are full for the truth -
until your belonging is absolute and your joy is complete.



(The Simple Message of 2012)

Two futures,
one dark and one bright,
is presented before the nations
of the children of Mankind.

We accept one by forsaking the other.

- selah -

How do we understand this?

By completing our remembrances as nations.

Certainly,
the paradigm of the last great age of war
that have prevailed over and utterly eclipsed
the spirit of our nations must be overthrown
by our willing acceptance of the times.

What is a nation?

What for is nationhood?

Personal remembrances make us human.
But it is our national remembrances
that make us citizens.

All depends on the smallest of thoughts.
---<--@

Never Forget

Dawn will come, this night will wane...
and it shall be 9/12/2001 all over again.



I promised to never forget and so

as for my own remembrance of this day,

I seek to banish hatred.

May all hatred whither and die! 

May all hatred find a place in our nations no more... 

May the reason of Man find its reason, 

may the purpose of the nations of the children of Mankind find its purpose. 

May the right remembrances be everywhere sought... 

And may it be the kind of remembrance 

that recalls all human hearts unto citizenship with the all of creation; 

that makes us builders in the LORD, nations under God, 

and lovers of the work of living life!

May we all be lovers of the work of living life! 

May our Mankind be joined in Justice and in Love 

and may all the nations of the children of Mankind find Peace

with each other - and  - in each other.

May we all be a family once again.
May good will triumph over division.
May this longest night end...

May the Day Star rise again in our hearts 

and may this awakening bring our midnight world 

unto the promised Morning of the new...

May the spirit of our humanity, 

by the grace of God and the aid of heaven, 

prevail forever over the spirit of War 

and may this unity break our bondage to the earth, 

that we may soar upon wings of eagles 

unto oneness with the sky...

May the glory of God be on earth as it is in heaven.... 

Alleluia!
---<--@

When anger is allowed to fester in the heart, an inhospitable and alien darkness eclipses the soul, shrouding all things in death...

For what is hatred but an ignorance of love? An enforced absence of sunlight in the soul of Man.


Embracing the Embracing

Standing Still

Only in the silence shall you know the words.



Be!

Say nothing for once,
and embrace everything;
forget all thy words and love!

Accept!

Knowing thy unknowing -
to refresh... and to remember...
and to live...

Hope!

Hoping all hopes bravely,
making them one
in thy heart...

Build!

Cherishing not
just the dream itself,
laboring to always dwell
within the dreaming...

Forgive!

Remove
all thy barriers
to the making us one...

   ...a better peace awaits.

Save thyself.
---<--@

Salutation #157

(Earthrise)

How we perceive each other
- as nations -
whether as potential adversaries
or as potential friends
constantly influence how we prepare
to encounter each other.

In a globalizing world
where we tend to encounter each other
- often and inevitably,
distinguishing between these two perceptions
is becoming increasingly important.

We must be careful not to slide back
into that old way of thinking
that inclines the mind to consider
the old mold of division as the paradigm of the new
for this will multiply our troubles considerably.

Every nation
is a potential friend - of all nations -
because every nation has more in common
with each other than we had
often thought!

Indeed
our peace is allied to each other
more deeply - and - more enduringly
than we had ever considered...

Our spirits are kin!
And our destiny so interwined
that - we are as if we are being constantly led -
into an ever greater unity by our unity
and often even more so by our divisions
unto oneness with each other on earth
as it is in heaven.
---<--@

Afire in the Darkness

Self-immolation
as a form of self-protestation
(particularly in the Buddhist tradition)
seemed a futile exercise to me
- until yesterday morning -
when I understood what it was saying
and what it was condemning
by the sheer power
of its sacrifice.

"I love...
yet I am part of you
no more."

"Awaken,
that you may live!"

- selah -

When a creature of living compassion
withdraws its noble spirit from our midst

our poverty is multiplied a hundred
and even a thousand-fold!

   For every
   human promise
   (in every lifetime)
   once it is left unsung
   is left forever unspoken.

   Therefore,
   a completeness of life
   is the strength of nations!

Life is grieved - as we must -
because we have come
to understand it.

BUT
we should shed more tears
for our not understanding
for it is this ignorance,

this reluctance to affirm,

this remaining act of denial...

which the action itself
seeks to enkindle
and burn away...

...that in the darkness,
we may - as nations - 
find the light.
---<--@