The Path of Plenty

Starshine,
the path into the way of many trees
is the path of plenty.

It is also one path.



Love your own and others like your own.

Love of Country

Starshine,
you can not love
what your own heart
does not understand...

This is why Country to thee
must be as the truth understood.

Because by our love of this work,
we shall by our own peace be sheltered.
---<--@

Crossing Over into 2013

I believe we're coming to a point as a species of humanity where 

what we don't know is becoming more and more important 

than what we do know.

Remember,

what's ahead of us in 2013 

shall largely depend 

on what we shall be willing to leave behind 

in 2012.

This - in turn - shall depend 

on the completeness of our remembrances 

as a nation; 

on how much of ourselves 

we have managed to gather up 

into the present - together this time -

as we cross the line of today 

into tomorrow.

Are we ready to cross over?

---<--@

No Peace without Adversity

Peace does not mean we shall not be challenged.

It means we have resolved to overcome them all - today.

Remember, 

no peace without adversity -

the peace of our nations is an imperfect peace!

For it is this remembrance 

that allows us to walk in humility before the LORD

that we may by His redeeming Light 

know our way ahead.

It is this remembrance 

that makes us strong in our unity.

It is this remembrance 

that makes us brave in the defense.

---<--@

Refer also to Salutation #138 - No Peace without Adversity

Salutation #170

Every gift of life... is wrought in love
and every love of life... is wrought in light
for the one light of life is... Jesus Christ the Lord.



(Christmas 2012)

MAY every Christmas bring us peace;
the beginnings of peace which is peace,
the workings of peace which is peace,
and the fruits of peace which is peace.

Because Christmas means -

I love you.

- selah -

So may all be in this love sheltered
and be brought forth anew each and every year
that all may through this love know in the truth
the spirit of every Christmas season
which is peace.

May all be at peace.
May all know the peace.

And may this peace be the peace
that was wrought in our world
by the Prince of Peace
which is Jesus Christ the Lord
that it may continue to serve
to bring our humanity forth
from darkness into the
one Light of God
everlasting.

May our journeys in this life
through Christmas be fulfilled
in the LORD, our God -
the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit,
alleluia, alleluia,
AMEN.
---<--@

Happy Christmas to us all! 

Peace be among the nations - and -
good will to all men and women of peace.

May we never be bereft of the light of God's peace.



Christ chose to be born in a place of love
surrounded with nothing else but love,
did He not, darling Starshine?

For the giving is the gift.

Is not our Lord and Savior an awesome God?

What now?

Now that the world did not end,
can we take better responsibility of it?

Can we take a planetary view of ourselves
and see our world as part of a grander design?

Can we become better citizens of each our own nations
and rediscover the order and purpose inherent to our world?

Can we brave the promised dawn that lies just ahead
and together prevail through the darkness of the last age
to become brighter advocates of peace and human community?

Can we become more compassionate stewards of our living earth?

Can we love God more as He must be loved in all creation?
---<--@

The darkest time in the night is not in the middle,
it is that part just before the breaking of the dawn.

Salutation #169

The human spirit is under siege -
the diversity which is its surest strength
and the unity which is its strongest foundation
is everywhere undermined
and corrupted.

Brother stands against brother,
nations against each other,
all in the not knowing
all no longer know.

(For what our nations
now seem to only remember
- under this season in time -
are reasons for war more so
than reasons for peace.)



(Zeal for the House of Humanity)

Darkness reigns

in the House of Humanity!

Christians are threatened.
Muslims are threatened.
Jews are threatened.

Hindus are threatened.
Sikhs are threatened.
Buddhists are threatened.
Atheists are threatened.

Every soul and every spirit
(whatever shines in ourselves)
across every belonging, 

and every belonging
across every nation
is threatened.

Somewhere in our world, 

this is always true.

If everybody is threatened,

who then is doing the threatening?

If we can not draw the line
- together this time -
when and where this insufferable war
against our common humanity ends
and the peace of our needful Mankind
truly ever begins... O ye peoples,
where then do we look to
for the morning?

Shall we wait till we all
shall have lost our humanity?

Shall we wait till every nation
have turned to ashes from within
and our world so needful of respite and repair
utterly plunged into a terrible darkness?

Can we hope to withstand another age of war?
---<--@



"Evil has taken a prominent place
in the hearts and minds of many;
like a dark star that rises
Wormwood ascends from sin to sin
in the Sacred Sanctuary of the soul
to eclipse our Eternal Daystar
turning our poor world into midnight
in the inward seasons of the celestial sky."

- Generation Y

Learning is forever

Does not a tree
love above all things,
the light of the Daystar?



Starshine,
in much the same way,
those who love God love instruction.
---<--@

Win or Lose

Don't worry, Manny...

When God knocks you down,
He intends to raise you up.

When God wounds your pride,
He intends to heal your spirit.

When God hands you a defeat,
He intends to teach you...
a new kind of victory.

- selah -

Do not forget, my brother Filipino,
that you will always find in your own nation
an even greater, nobler and more lasting arena
wherein which you may freely devote
your spirit and energy.

We will always be here for you.

For it is not for your fame,
your fortune or your many victories
that you are loved by those who love you:
It is for your kindness, your goodness,
your noble strength of heart, your fierce spirit,
your trust in the glory of the God of greater things,
and your manifest love of the common people.

We love you for your poverty,
your sense of sharing:
your citizenship.

No ring, no limit, no opponent, no arbiter
can take you away from the you being - just you -
so must you endeavor to never forget, brother,
especially now that you were brought low,
what is lasting and what is not. 

For it is here
- at the lowest points in life -
where you can best observe the highest
the sweetest, and the most wondrous places
thy faith in the good God can take you in your life;
it is here where you can best discover
the heights of what is
and what is not.

We love you, Manny:

Win or Lose.
---<--@

Salutation #168

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.



(An Identity of Participation)

Citizen, participate -

(1) in the economic life of thy nation
(productivity, industry, and material prosperity)

   - be honest in your dealings with others
   - pay your taxes

(2) in the political life of thy nation
(responsible authority, meaningful order, and human purpose)
   - be fair in your dealings with others
   - properly exercise your right to vote

(3) in the spiritual life of thy nation
(virtue, meaning, and human felicity)
   - be willing to allow others to be happy
   - work to be happy

(4) in the social life of thy nation
(peace, justice, and human community)
   - be willing to lead and to be led
   - obey the law

BE all you can be for God and Country.
---<--@


Citizenship with Fidelity

Salutation #167

Benignity preserveth, Justice bringeth, Law leadeth, Life giveth.

(A Just Society)

Let us be a Republic
where people know of goodness
and recognize in themselves this goodness
and having no fear of the spirit of our Justice
   (who likewise love and recognize the same goodness
   idealized in our Vision of a peaceful national community
   and protected by the prevailing laws of our Country),
have every recourse to and confidence in the same
and by the same Justice fostered in their Liberty.

Let us be a labor of Country
where no man or woman who is good
fear neither the goodness of other citizens
nor the triumph of the spirit of evil in our midst.

Let us live in this society.

- selah -

Let us be a Just Society!
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

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!

The Autumn Gate

How do we know where it leads?



I have written enough now
about the December 21 terminus of the age
to deflect much of the fear and paranoia
that precedes these kinds
of greater movements of things...

...things that are beyond our realm of earth,
things beyond the current spread of our world,
but are yet things that are not beyond the realm
of our Mankind which is the universe entire.



It is not a time of great fear,
it is a time of great faith -
of prayer and not of panic;

of the spirit
and not an ignorance of the spirit;

of reason
and not an ignorance of reason;

of our common humanity
and not of common inhumanity;

of peace
and not of war...

For it is a time of light
and nevermore the darkness!

It begins, my darling Starshine,
as all great feats of freedom oft begins,
with a plain and simple choice -

to be one or the other.
---<--@



The unfulfilled dreams of Mankind and the freedom of God -
these are the primary causes for the expansion of space and time.

We are, therefore, we must.

Salutation #166

(Seasons of Sky)

Starshine, 
the long count calendar
is not a measure of when.

It is a measure of why.

The seasons within it
are not terrestrial in nature.

They are celestial
and are - therefore - cycles
in the spirit.

It is not meant to measure
a spread of time.

it is meant to measure
a completeness of remembrance.

Therefore,
it doesn't answer us when.

It asks us why.

What else is it for?
---<--@

Shalom. Salaam. Peace.

"I will turn them back into their nations
and return them to a memory of themselves
unto the work that I have purposed for the earth
that they may understand again the value of peace

so that I may prosper them through their generations

and bring them back to a memory of each other."
---<--@



I love the Holy Land
and have often thought -

If Israel is attacked, I am an Israeli.

If Palestine is attacked, I am a Palestinian.

If both Israel and Palestine are attacked -
then I am Israeli and Palestinian both.

But when they attack each other,
I am sorely grieved...

I am sorely grieved
for the least, the defenseless,
and the voiceless among them both.

For when both attack each other,
it is never the blame of the weak
but always of the strong...

In this way, I find my voice.

So that when in my heart I affirm -
"let there be peace be in the Middle East!",
I become sure of my own sincerity.
---<--@


No Way

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.
---<--@