The Nine Common Human Needs: Clothing in the Nation

The Devil and his angels 
hid from the LORD 
for the same reason 
our First Parents 
hid from God.



For it had never occurred
to either Lucifer or his corrupt angels
before the onset in their awareness of evil 
that the mortal dread that must arise in terror of God
was to be born of the coming swift realization
- of the real consequence of their own treason -
that they, by so choosing to freely cast themselves
- as realities distinct and apart - from the one Sovereignty
of their one Creator, did come to fully recognize
to their everlasting shame - that their own impotence
was - and shall forever be for them - the very real cost -
of their futile act of betrayal against the Omnipotence
of the one, true, and always-victorious LORD, our God. 

The most apparently visible cause
of the nakedness in Man and in his Enemy
(being the Devil and his fallen angels - who are all likewise
the Enemy of God, all the Holy Angels, and all of Mankind)
seem but one and the same - a betrayal of a most Sacred Trust.

But the conditions that have arisen from this sin
   as they have been decreed by God to prevail in Justice
   forever - in the beings of the Devil and his fallen angels
   and for a time - in the beings born of the lineages of Man
   that Divine Providence have reserved to long in sorrow endure
   and eventually - through the shedding away of our many tears,
   prevail from the fallen state of our Exile - upon an Unknown Earth -
   far across the generations of the Nations of the Children of all Mankind
are wrought not in similar forms, nor are they one act of Judgment.

For the roots of this sin of betrayal were born
from very different motives - and the grounds upon which
these seeds of treason were sown - are of two very distinct natures -
which neither Man nor the Devil can adequately comprehend
in the attempt to fully understand or relate with the other.

For in not understanding the other, 
one is lead - unto an understanding - in the self.

So that each act of Divine Judgment 
are wrought for either Man or Devil alone 
and have nothing to do with the other. 

For the Pride that leads to Perdition
and for the Humility that worketh 
unto Repentance and Salvation.
---<--@



Nakedness is another condition of our Exile. 

It is expressive of Man's fear of his human vulnerability
essentially expressed as a deep and profound fear
of all things life-giving and salvific (in God and in Goodness)
but seamlessly proceeds to rise into the surface
of our everyday human understanding as bodily fear 
of the many evils that abound on the unfamiliar
and hostile ground of an Unknown Earth.

And proceeds
as a realization in the human awareness - that -
as Man alone, each of us are weak and vulnerable of being.

The symptoms of these are fear (and daring), despair (and hope),
and our very human need to seek the safety of living shelters
of God - in our family, in friends, and in human community.

For we are naked
and we know that we are naked -
and in need of clothing - for our nakedness -
clothing fit to preserve our inherent
dignity and promise.

And so God gave us 
the initial clothing to wear... 
and so we are, and so we must.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
Access to Universal Human Healthcare  
and Public Hygiene Services.
---<--@

Taxes we bear with money;
Remembrance, with memory;
Poverty, with wealth and posterity;
Death, with the life of our humanity.


The Nine Common Human Needs

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

Yet we remember them in their incomplete portraits.

We remember the absence. We remember the distant greatness.

We remember the abruptness of his death. And its untimely nature did accept.

We remember the missing pieces of his life and times. Yet linger on - in knowledge bereft.

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed! 
To the National Memory - and the heritage of Mankind -
till the end of the Age, and the last fading away upon this World,
when the Firmament beginning again - comes full circle - for All.
   

Yet t'is a solemn Trust seemingly
most effectively expressed - in the Nation

   (as a memory of something - of something that is repressed -

   ever like the constant haze that surrounded his term in those times,

   so full of unknowing, and fearfully ignorant about its own uncertainties 

   born of unforgotten moments - that seem to have waned - in the distance

   retreating somehow - uncomfortably so - in the distance - just outside of reach)

as - its profound and quiet absence - of things mostly now hidden yet forever bright!

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - is - 

by his own greatness in the National Remembrance 

mostly remembered by the charisma of his Presidency.

Indeed there exists in the Nation these days,

- a prevailing nostalgia about this very charisma -

acutely felt - in the absence of an engaged civic spirit -

which was the enlightened contribution of his own personage, 

and the very soul of his own devotion to the sacred trust of the Nation:

Enlightenment of the National Spirit was the Vision of his Camelot.

Yet the summits of JFK's legacy 

seem perpetually founded on tumults;

his term established in the midst of War 

seems only remembered by its passing away;

the common remembrance of JFK - seemingly -

one to be embraced like his absence, in the silence...

- selah -

The dilemma is in the waiting.

For in the waiting, we await for nothing.

For a future of completeness - we can not envision -

either by their wholes or through their complementary parts

without accepting what we may at present comprehend 

about the horizons of that one tomorrow, today.

The 35th President has bequeathed to his Nation his legacy!

And it can not be more complete to God than the sacrifice he freely gave.

For though all was not perfect - all was given perfectly - for God and Country.

So may he and his times - under this season of Sky -

be remembered in the Light of the right Remembrance

and in the Spirit of the Nation unto whom JFK and his family 

dedicated each of their life's callings to serve and to love faithfully 

be no longer in our memory bound to the dilemma - of the longing 

and of the not holding on - of the having and the not knowing it.

And so the tragedy in the life of the 35th President 

should not permeate as a taint upon his solemn memory;

the misgivings and failings that surround the murder of his person

and the years that were fallen away from the Nation by its painful loss 

can not be held to account together - as if Justice and Memory were one -

for the certainty of the vindication of Justice is a realm that is separate and distinct 

from the necessary honoring of the Remembrances that God requires of All.

None of those failings were the failings of the 35th President.

And to confuse them with each other - is a failure to render account -

of a life that was taken before its promise was fully realized in the Nation -

that all Citizens exist for each other and each other for God and for Country

and that to give to Country what Country seeks is also to give to one's self

what happiness was ever so diligently promised as this Nation's pursuit.

It was his nearness to the common people that inspired his strength.

It is a nearness that lives on - in younger hopes that inspire new strength

that within each heart - is felt in the silence - as a warmth and a glow.

Let the nostalgia fade away into a fullness of national embrace!

And let our pining for the Camelot that once seemed lost - fully become -

like a prayer for better days - shining aright again with a newness of hope!

That ever like the undying Flame that with Vigilance stands over JFK's memory,
we may recognize what was lost to our observance - all this time... as the warmth of his life;
that the pain of its own longing in the Nation's hearts may no longer consume us with trepidation 

and no longer seek in our souls to consume our spirit with many concerns - beyond its brightness -
that we may let go of the past and look again to future things, with much love - here - now, today. 

Let us begin.

---<--@

I do not know who murdered JFK. What I know is that his life and legacy was cut short by its crime. And an entire Nation was upon its intricacies mislead by a false allure into a lingering grief, unable to make their peace with the Remembrance of a remarkable Presidency and far too long burdened by this debt.

Justice is not Remembrance and indeed, it must be said
- the Certainty of Justice and the Burden of Justice are two distinct principles,
the former is a Pledge undertaken by God, and the latter, a command issued by Him
for all Nations to make a living and present account of all human life - to the last hair on their heads - 
that we may work together to alleviate among ourselves this common Burden of Justice
by timely payments made before God and the Assembly of each and every Nation
standing before His Throne in Eternity - against this Debt of Remembrance.

The Nine Common Human Needs: Thirst in the Nation

As blood is thicker than water and as water runs deeper than blood -
Hunger in Man weighs more heavily upon his soul than his Thirst
but Thirst in Man runs deeper in his soul than does his Hunger -
and can kill him more quickly than his Hunger ever can.



The thirst in Man is deeper than our hunger. 

Yet this thirst is also material in its form.

The need to quench the thirst
in the corporeal body in Man
is a reflection of the state
- of the human soul -
arid, parched, 
barren as a desert wilderness -
devoid of life and 
desolate of the waters 
of living life. 

For there is an absence in the soul of Man,
- a principal consequence of our Exile -
the sin of our separation from God.

This drive in Man is the result
of our very human quenching for God
that is manifest in the whole of our being
as thirst - and is the most profoundly human
of all the nine common needs.

It is an evil Man did not intend 
and exists to remind us
of our common need of the Truth
and the constancy of the living waters 
that flow from Its Hidden 
Abundance.

For we are in our hearts, 
its tributaries in time and throughout - 
called in common to fill the desolation of the Void,
expanding it - and filling it with the waters of living life
unto the completion of the purposes of God - for this universe
and - for time itself as we know it.

When we look
at the universe and into our souls,
thirst reminds us of our need of the Truth -
to quench the absence in our hearts
and fill our loneliness with togetherness
and satiate with God, the human quenching
for the everlasting waters that quenches with life
the deepest and most profound quenching in ourselves
and the purposes for which we exist -
alive to the Alive.

Man's thirst left unanswered and unrecognized
leaves him diminished in his humanity
and leaves him weak of spirit and of will
and this lack of concentration of the human spirit 
- leaves the national communities of Mankind restless -
vulnerable to stir with the stirring of the spirit of War
and the consuming flames that seek to endanger
with swift and terrible destruction 
what parched and dry timbers yet remain standing fast
in the national communities of Mankind.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
Water Access and Management.
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

GunSMART: A Mature Steward

Every
GunSMART
Citizen - is a -

S - Safe
M - Mature
A - Able
R - Responsible
T - Trustworthy

Steward of the Gun.
---<--@



Every
GunSMART
Citizen - is therefore -

2. A Mature Steward
adequately cognizant of his or her
personal role in the keeping of the Public Trust
as a public Citizen bearing private witness
of our Liberty in the Virtue of Arms.

That the Vision of Gun Maturity is - in spirit -
fully realized in the National Remembrance
and in the living Traditions of the Republic
as a common duty to the Common Defense
and the Stewardship of the National Arms.

Mature Stewardship 
fully cognizant of the antecedent reality 
that continually forms and informs the Gun culture
stands to safeguard this reality at its source.

So that all evil
as it pertains to the Gun culture
as it should - presently must always exist - may
ever find its efficacious remedies not through Laws
that endanger its intrinsic accountabilities in Liberty
but through Mature Stewardship of its Freedom
and the Duties and Responsibilities particular to it
that are in keeping with the National Common Weal.

A Gun Mature Steward
therefore, exercises Gun Maturity
as an affirmation of the Second Amendment.

And recognizes from this Maturity 
- in the spirit and virtue of the Nation's Arms -
what is necessary in Liberty and what is extraneous in Legality
specifically as it pertains to the Gun culture in the Republic -
its conservation, adaptations and necessary evolution.
---<--@



To my beloved nieces 
- Aleksis, Clara and Leila -
and their common generations
utterly deserving of safer schools,
saner communities, and abler mentors -
upon a brighter world, under nobler skies.

GunSMART: A Safe Steward

Every
GunSMART
Citizen - is a -

S - Safe
M - Mature
A - Able
R - Responsible
T - Trustworthy

Steward of the Gun.
---<--@

Every
GunSMART
Citizen - is therefore -

1. A Safe Steward 
and knowledgeable of Gun Safety
rules and principles - specifically
in the National sense.

That the Vision of Gun Safety is - in principle -
fully expressed in the Second Amendment
as necessary to "the Security of a Free State".

This implies
that the Gun is - firstly -
an instrument of the Common Defense.

And
that the Gun is - lastly -
only the extension of its first purpose.

So that all evil 

as it pertains to the Gun per se

that is specific to the free expression 

of the National Spirit and its Sovereignty

begins from Unsafe Stewardship.

- selah -

A GunSafe Steward 
therefore, exercises Gun Safety
as a vindication of the Second Amendment.

And recognizes from
this awareness in the Nation
what in spirit must animate all other
derivative Gun Safety rules and principles
in their individual and personal sense.
---<--@



To my beloved nieces 
- Aleksis, Clara and Leila -
and their common generations
utterly deserving of safer schools,
saner communities, and abler mentors -
upon a brighter world, under nobler skies.

The Nine Common Human Needs: Hunger in the Nation

The hunger in Man is material. 

It is a condition of our Exile
and the most basic of all human needs.

The need to sustain the corporeal body
with the life of the earth - drive the hunger in Man
who takes so he can eat - and eats so he can live -
and lives so he can master his hunger.

It is - in itself - not evil.

And finds efficacious remedy
in the salutary nature of human labor
and the work of the Earth 
commanded by God 
of all Nations.

However,
hunger in the Nation,
when taken for granted 
may become for Man,
a source of material poverty
and exist as a social evil
contrary to the growth and development
of the human community.

This denial of hunger
(in all its forms, from slight to serious)
when in our own midst - feeds unto itself -
and give rise to the various social sins -
that worketh to prevent in the Nation,
the material prosperity necessary
to sustain and foster - even in our midst -
the individual human development
of our common Citizenry.

Material wealth - in any Nation -
is always a result of a people's
spiritual strength.

For there are two forms of poverty in Man;
the first one is physical and the other one is spiritual -
the former is always preceded by the latter.

When the condition is that the spiritual needs 
required to alleviate material poverty is present in the people -
then this kind of poverty is the physical kind.

And this is remedied by the work of the earth.

We are then,
by and with our connections
- with and among ourselves -
in God through our Nation,
prospered by our citizenship 
and material prosperity becomes for us naturally,
as an occurrence of our need to master
the hunger in each ourselves.

But when the same physical poverty is likewise
the result of ignorance or corruption of the spiritual needs 
required to address hunger, as the most basic of human needs,
and the soul of the Nation is dim and weak,
this kind of poverty is the organic kind
and dwells with the life
of the people.

If the Republic - were to mount a defense -
against Poverty in the Nation, it would be undertaken
specifically against this aforementioned kind of poverty
as a means to obtain for Social Justice in the Nation
a better expression of the Equality of our peoples.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation 
is Food Security.
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

Exchange Fish

Happy, happy, fish, fish - sushi!

Me and my Miyang
gave each other
a fish today.

It was
the same kind of fish
of exactly the same size...
and it tasted the same, too.

Indeed,
the only thing
that made it different 
was the giving...

For it came from our hearts...
and made something ordinary
into something extraordinary.

It was all it took
to make us happy cats.
---<--@

Salutation #189

God replied, "I am who am." 
Then He added, "This is what you shall tell the Israelites:
I AM sent me to you."

God spoke further to Moses,
"Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD,
the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
has sent me to you. "

This is my Name forever; 
this is my Title for all generations.

Exodus 3: 14-15


Pursue peace and pursue it absolutely.

In commemoration of the outpouring of humanitarian aid and assistance to my Nation by the many Nations in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) - "Salamat po at mabuhay po tayong lahat nang mga Bansa ng mga Anak ng Sangkatauhan!" 

(God is, and that is all!)

God is, and that is all!
The LORD is His Name.
And this is the Truth -
He is God forever!

God is, as He is!
And all creation bears witness to God,
the LORD Who is - Creator to all that is,
was, and ever will be, worlds upon worlds
without end, and glorious for God forever.

The LORD is One
and jealous is God for His Name's sake.
He is, alone among the Heavens and upon the Earth,
and in all souls and in all hearts, God without compare!

Above all things, beyond all things,
with all things, and in all things,
the LORD waits. God waits on those
who wait on Him. And confess that He is One!

God is to be feared.
For a mighty God is the LORD!
He is God and kind to all His creatures,
merciful to all poor souls in need, and able to save all
who come to know Him and fear Him and say,
"Amen to God, Amen."

God is Spirit Unseen 
and He goes where He goes;
here, there, and everywhere God is.

He comes without knowledge,
and speaks without words,
yet all hearts know the LORD is
and make Peace with His Name
singing, "Alleluia to God, 
Alleluia to God,
Amen."

For God is forever
and none has seen the Truth
of the God Who is
Who is not of the LORD forever
and prevaileth without death
for God is - all are not.

What creature can say this or that 
of the LORD?

What mouth speaketh
of God of the knowledge of God
knoweth not the LORD whose heart
repenteth not in tears and ashes.

It is terrible to Man 
to be caught up in the LORD.
For God is - where Man is not.

In the realization of God,
Man awakens to fear
for Man fears God
because God is -
and Man is not
and comes
to a knowledge of fear
in the reality of his separation
from God and from other Men.

And in the fear
of not being asleep to God,
Man finds in the reality of God,
in His faithfulness and loving kindness,
the fear of not being awake in Him.

And in humility
he overcomes his fear
by subjecting it to the LORD,
the God Whom he wisely fears,
with trembling adoration.

The image of the LORD is 
the Sound of His Name!

All that is - hears the call of their God
and arises from the face of the deep.

All that is - rejoices in the Name of the LORD
for all that is, was, and shall ever be.

None has seen, none has heard, yet all is
and all that is - rejoices - for God is
and God in all - is.

God is the likeness of life;
all that live know of life through God
and all of the living who seek God
came to know of the life in Him.

For He is in all living souls
the Being of our being and the Life in our life,
in the breath that imparts, in the breathing that becomes, God is -
ever like life - longing for the perfection of happiness forever.

The Wisdom of God is in all His works.
And it is wondrous to behold!

The glory of God rests
upon all things like the morning dew
and it refreshes the poor of heart.

For Wisdom makes poor as God makes rich
that the humble rejoice and the haughty flee in shame.

God is God in perfect contemplation of Himself;
Truth realizing Love - and Freedom proclaiming itself to the captives,
Love realizing Truth - and Justice and Mercy blessing all the Earth
with loving kindness, compassion, mercy, gentleness, and peace.
Beauty beholding Beauty. God beholding God.
---<--@

Salutation #188

Crafting a new order in the Middle East
requires the Nations of the Children of Mankind
to return to their deepest spiritual roots -
to the fundamental Human, Angelic,
as well as Divine purposes
for each of our Emergence in Time -
as a Family of Nations upon this world:
Peace, Good Will and the Building up 
of the Inhabited Earth.


Pursue peace and pursue it absolutely.

In commemoration of the outpouring of humanitarian aid and assistance to my Nation by the many Nations in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) - "Salamat po at mabuhay po tayong lahat nang mga Bansa ng mga Anak ng Sangkatauhan!" 

(Greater Israel)

Thou art a people, Israel -
before all things, before thou wert,
thou wert a Nation raised by the LORD!

At the Gates of Eden, thou wert!
Before the long march of exiled humanity,
thou wert a Nation among Nations, chosen.

In thy spirit, thou art a lineage -
born of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob -
a people united by the faithfulness of the LORD.

O beloved Israel, thou wert -
the first of the Nations of the Children

delivered from weakness unto strength in God.

Remember, thou wert - O Israel -

the first to know of the Truth of the LORD -

that God delivers, God provides, and God saves -

that all Nations may come to a knowledge of Peace.

---<--@

Personal Reflection:

All Nations are a people first. 

I too believe in a dream of a Greater Israel - Eretz Israel.

But the dream that I believe in - can not be begun -
if it is a dream bound by the limits of the Land of Israel.

For the Greater Israel I believe in resides
in the spirit that lives within the one heart of the Jewish nation -
Greater Israel as an Nation absolutely dedicated to Peace -
the Peace of God which is the common salutation
of the children of our Father Abraham
to all human Nations.

In this spirit is rebirth - for we can not return in time -
along the way that time itself has left us - in our common reality -
like it is to return to the womb - we can not experience physical time twice.

But we can experience
in our own memories - a rebirth of timeless Remembrance -
and obtain in our understanding, a spirit that leads the way to a newness of time
upon our hearts, upon our lives, upon our families, upon our national communities,
and upon our world - an age where we all can hope and work together - to become
the greater Nations in ourselves - one to prevail in Maturity over our lesser selves -
and rejoice in the shedding away of former things by our turning away from them
that we may indeed become the light unto each other that God hath intended
all human Nations to be - kindred in His Peace over War - forever. 

O How Long the Wait

How long shall I wait in weakness, my God?
How long shall the brokenness of sin
haunt my shadow, my LORD?

I live in wait and suffer to offend
Thou Whom I love
by my sins.

O forsake me not, my God,
and have mercy on my poor soul!

O my Savior, save me -
O my Jesus, deliver me.

And so I weep with scornful tears
at my failures before thee,
O Mother of my God!

For numerous are my offenses
and before me my sins persist
like dark tomorrows.

O Mary Ever Virgin,
and Ever Chaste Queen,
though doubts rise and hopes fall,
I will cling to you!

O my Savior, save me -
O my Jesus, deliver me.

---<--@

Salutation #187

The War in heaven is in the heart.

(Maturity of Remembrance)

God seeks to be near to all His Children!

In their Exile,
He has clothed them with Justice.

Justice
through each Nation
the LORD hath - together appointed -
at the autumnal Dusk of our Faded and Fallen Eden
to shelter with Peace the remnant peoples of all Mankind,

and who at the East Gate stands faithful guard to the Memory
that the lineages of Adam and Eve may hope to prevail - in time,
according to the great and mysterious designs of His Wisdom,

over the lands of an Unknown Earth, far away from familiar Sky,

cast adrift in the unyielding Darkness, across the Veil of Exile Time. 

And in despair of death, 

offered them Love and Mercy.

Love
in the one Redeemer
He hath appointed to save our souls,
- ever before any of our souls needed saving -
long before we were even souls - alive to the Alive -
deep in the waters of the Firmament, before the Earth.

And Mercy
through the Most Holy Incarnation
of that same timeless and ageless Redeemer,
in Our Emmanuel - Who is Jesus Christ the Lord -
Who through His Sacred Humanity, came upon our Earth
- to be with us - the God with us - in our poverty and suffering.

Christ 
Who as Word of the Father spake to all hearts of - the Truth -

that God is - across all realms of Earth - and unto all Ages of time,
one and for always - for Christ did love - the each of us, in each of us
- ever in spite of our smallness and despite the greatness of our sins,
with a Love that is forever - and did reveal to our needful world
the deepest and most profound expression of this Divine Love
in the Christian Mysteries - for the Salvation of all human Nations -
so that in Spirit and Truth, the LORD is, in all living hearts - as God is -
to be sought, loved, served, understood, praised, revered, and worshiped
without division - as one ascendant motion in time - for God is Love unyielding,
and in all things professed in honor of this Blessed and Eternal Unity
He dwells forever - as Father, Son, and Spirit.

- selah -

As Father to each orphaned human heart,
and the one Sovereign of all the Nations of Mankind
God seeks us - in the Peace we profess in our human communities;
in the National Belongings that are the direct expression
of His unyielding will of Unity, of Peace over War.

As Redeemer of all Mankind,
the Son comes to us - as a Servant of our common humanity -
to share in our littleness, and to drink of our bitterness,
and to join in our common human hopes.

Indeed,
Jesus came to call sinners to life,
and to gather all the lost to Himself.

And lived to serve and not to be served,
in a posture of offering, and laid down His life
through an act of His own Freedom - giving all -

- that the poor and the needy 

may receive sustenance and strength,

- the stranger and the outcast
may find the good will of Godly friends,
- the orphan and the widow
may come to the solace of a faithful Nation,
- and the weak of the Unknown Earth
may discover again the preserving salt of our tears
through Him Who wept for all our weeping
upon that lonely Cross on Calvary

for the Salvation of our common Humanity 

and the Redemption of our Mankind

with tears born of human compassion 

that flowed with the Blood of His Passion

and cleansed the Darkness of our Exile 

sealing forever the one Everlasting Covenant

that consummates the Promises of the Old 

of deeds by written word spoken in Scriptures 

by Prophets and Patriarchs of those times before

Passing them Over from weakness to strength

that Scripture may be professed as Light,

through Word of the Incarnate Truth, 

made Ageless and ever New. 

For Christ is our Prince, 

and everlasting above everlasting,

- the Defender of our Eternal Remembrances - 

mighty and able to save us - through height or depth,

in good times and in evil times, through illness and in health,

from weakness into strength, from grief to joy, despair to hope

across the desolation of the human soul and the troubles of this life,

Jesus is Emmanuel - in life and in death, forever - He is God with us.

And He seeks us - in the Good Will we must profess as a love of the Peace
He has entrusted to all those whose hearts have come to know the Truth, 

that God is, the LORD - one God alone.

- selah -

Yea, in the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we are sent - 

to be seekers of the Peace and witnesses in the Good Will of God thereof.

For as the Father sends the Son to call the Nations to Remembrance

and even as the Son speaks to each and every Nation about the Father 

- calling all human hearts unto an everlasting witness of the Truth -

the Spirit of the Truth rejoices in - the one Truth - that God is, 

and that He is God forever!

Alleluia to God, 

O Children of Mankind, 

alleluia to God, all ye Nations!

For thou wert a people saved - before thou needed saving -

and a Nation - gathered and justified - before God and each other,
long before thou wert ever alone and in need of His constant Peace.

Alleluia to God, 

O Angels of the LORD, 

alleluia to God, all ye Heavens!

For the LORD purposed - through time and all its Ages -
to bring unto all living hearts, a new rebirth of Freedom and Truth -

that the Original Glory of the Heavens and the Earths shine again forever;

in a time made new, of worlds made whole again, lit in golden glory.

Peace is over War.

---<--@

We are by each unique person 
Redeemed by our Holy Redeemer.

But the fullness of our Salvation comes 
through the strength of our common 
human communities.

In Peace we are purposed
and through it, we are obtained.

The LORD God therefore 

banished him from the garden of Eden, 

to till the ground from which he had been taken.

When He expelled the man, 

He settled him east of the garden of Eden; 

and He stationed the cherubim 

and the fiery revolving sword, 

to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3: 23-24

Carry on, Sir

We stop not to argue
- in the shadows - about the Night
and the maddening depths of it.
Lest the Darkness overtake us
with madness.

We stop not
carrying on along the way
for our discourse is about the Morning
walking together as if with Christ
on the Road to Emmaus.

Carry on, sir. 

Remember always your promise (to yourself)
during your inauguration speech, that you are beholden
to the loving remembrance in your own heart - my kuya Noy -
of a memory both personal as well as national in their natures:
Use it to see clearly, and with steadfast faith in God
and diligent attention to His Providence,
continue to express through thy august Office,
the Executive vision that you want for our Country
to particularly possess - in your own time.

The vision of a Government
that is accountable to its own authority,
aware of its responsibility - to the mandate -
it has variously received from the one Nation
on whose life and promise, the Responsible State
derives from the Divine Providence of God,
it's powers to govern - with virtue and wisdom,
within the particular framework of a Republic undertaking of Country,
the greater wealth and the greater good, both spiritual as well as material,
of the common generations of our people - unto the last of our generations
- forever.

I pray your spirit be clear even when all things are not -
that you, dear Sir, in your own solitude may always, always have a recourse
to the Love of the LORD present and ever so near to thy own heart.
And so may God love thee and keep thee and bless thee forever.

May a living Remembrance of these times - kindle in thee, its own virtue -
that all things God may reveal to thee - come necessary to the account of thy heart
that thou in the Sanctuary of the love that you keep in your soul may reach out to the darkness
through a fire born of greater things, and a light forbearing in hope, be ever capable of the embrace
with which God embraces all individual realities - in the Spirit of His abundant Peace
- a seed of the ultimate experience of Country.

You are the center to which there can be no rising nor falling, the center unto which the powers of the Nation must derive their constant measure.

The wings that shelter our Country must continually form and re-form themselves, at the rise and fall of each and every moment, from thy Office. No where else may it rely upon for its life and life's purpose.

There could be no rising nor falling in your commitment to your Office - its lineage, virtue, and authority are all you have to bring down from God and heaven the necessary strength to power the flight of our Republic toward that promised Dawn - and verily, these are all you need.

May they humble you and in God, make you ever persevere.
---<--@

Personal Reflection -

A faithful President over a perfect one - always.

I do not always agree with our President Noy
but I implicitly know we walk in the same direction. 

He may seek to express within our Republic journey,
matters about our National Dialogue that are varied and distinct
or even, at times, seemingly antithetical to my politics, but never will I forget -
that the journey we all must take - under this season of sky - is but one, long march -
from the depths and the darkness of Exile unto the Light and the Promise of an Eden Rebuilt -
for our Nation and its own emergent Republic motion under heaven, and therefore, for all Nations.

Tyrants are not as fortunate to as be blessed with any prevailing sense of a National direction
let alone agree with anybody - with consistency on which way is forward and which way is back.

Thoughts on the Legislative System

Our Congress
may be likened to two lungs
- the Senate and the House of Representatives -
they both feature one function -
Respiration.

Now, as it were - in this metaphor,
each one whole act - of - each one whole lung
is the action of one system -
the Legislative.



IF within each lung
there were divisions that make it functionally stronger
then that is just a natural part of its physiology -
for these divisions assist and facilitate
in the efficient delivery of its vital function:
The meticulous crafting and maintenance
- in behalf of the National whole -
of a living system of law.

BUT if within either lung,
those divisions were to cause either one to weaken and fail -
shall the body ask which lung is giving it such distress?

Indeed,
within the Legislative System itself
- shall either lung - whether the Senate or the House -
reply to the organism, the one Republic of the one Filipino Nation
   (on whose a priori existence its own existence manifestly requires
   and unto whose well-being and safety, it is - as a whole - subordinated
   both in sovereign function - as well as - in sovereign authority),
"only a fraction of either one of us did it"?

NO, because in the first instance, the System itself - as a whole -
is directly answerable to both itself - and - the greater body of the people:
"The we forever" that this Congress exists to singularly serve
and on whose constant behalf must therefore,
diligently and sincerely maintain itself
ever toward that specific purpose
of popular service.

FOR however small the tumor
- just as much as the successful function of the System rely on its parts -
any failure of its parts to deliver is also a failure of the System entire.

This is (and should be)
the beginning and end of the measure
by which all the generations of the people
shall remember and acclaim - our Congress -
in its sessions and throughout its seasons, a Congress:
Never so by its parts but - always and ultimately -
according to its assemblies in their wholes.

Because for richer or poorer, in ill-health and in well times -
all elements that belong to the functions of the wholes within a Republic
are wed to the Systems unto which they serve
as parts to a synergy of wholes.

This is why,
in the way of understanding
our own particular Republic undertaking of Country,
one should never treat the Systems (and its Symbols) that comprise it - like its parts -
withholding one's convictions from bitterness and despair - for our own good,
and to reserve in thy civic spirit - a sacred space of patriotic belief -
where one may always seek to return to with honor.

And so
- in the case of this particular meditation -
one may likewise only exhort the legislative Offices
distinctly as their separate Houses - and/or - at their highest Collegial level,
exhort either august bodies to function FULLY together as a Congress -
and move independently of the stultifying spells of the politics
that this Republic may - even at sundry times obtain
from the persons of each their politicians.

- selah -

NOW
it is normal in the realm of politics to exist in opposition.
Therefore, Opposition parties do not choose to become Opposition parties
but are placed into their position by normal legislative circumstances prevailing in their day
and therefore DO have to perform a function
in particular with their specific calling
from within Congress.

Opposition parties
must oppose the intended legislative priorities of the Majority.
And this it does in order to give them pause - and - to remind them of the Opposition
or the Minority view that only by a twist of Providence, a circumstance of the Divine Wisdom,
the Majority could always have been - and could be - IF the Majority view fails
in their function to maintain the health of each lung, as it were - and coalesce
behind themselves the vital breath that bring new life to the living law.

The Minority view principally represents
the voice of the very, very fine smallness of random chance,
the nature of which the Legislative Body - as a whole -
must always be aware of - and - ever so be made to be aware of
for the System unto which they all as fellow legislators equally serve unto
once willingly given over to the realms of fate and of blind chance
- instead of being dedicated to the challenge of it -
loses control of itself completely and abruptly.

And so the Opposition must not be necessarily adversarial in nature
and should exist not to merely oppose but to "be in opposition" -
ever faithful to the Congressional whole - and - loyal to the Republic whole.
For the Minority in being aware of itself, lends its certain strength
to the Majority - and keeps the whole system sober
and functionally aware that it is.

Because in the end, within the embrace of our National peace,
everybody profits from knowing everybody belongs - to make things so -
and that politics and politicians - in and by their being, are transient by nature -
and this - their persons must always remember - that it is - and - that they are -
AND so realize that the ultimate vocation of all persons who in their souls
profess to belong to this one Republic whole - belongs -
to the right exercise of a common citizenship.

And that sometimes,
one has to be on the right side,
and lose - and carry on.
---<--@

As regards the question of the National Wealth, should the Government exist to serve the needs of the poor or the rich?

As regards
the question of the National Wealth,
its recognition, creation, conservation, transformation, and ultimate possession,
should Government exist to serve
the needs of the poor? No.
The rich? No.



Government exists to come to the aid of all of its citizens
that they may - rich or poor - be able to dwell harmoniously together
in order to effectively meet their common human needs -
WORKING together to secure both the dignity and promise of human life,
serve and defend the national peace, enrich their sovereign freedoms,
and to be better and better able to guarantee for their common posterity,
a Republic that - with each generation ripens - for the good of all generations -
in virtue and maturity - in time and in remembrance.

The material betterment that Capitalism promises
is founded on the truth that all citizens must first of all, regard each other as such -
as human beings to each other - being variously but consistently sympathetic
to the poverty and humiliation of the human condition and thus,
willing to work freely with each other under God
to continuously co-create and prosper
the National Wealth.

Upon this singular moral condition is founded
the ethical safeguards that are necessary to preserve the societal certainty
of its central ideals of entrepreneurial competition and market freedom.

Businesses that come to possess a superior management
stand to outdo those that consistently fail to acquire it.
And proceeding from this first ideal (i.e. authentic human entrepreneurship)
in a free market environment (i.e. one that is possessed of authentic market freedoms),
products (and services as products) that are better made consistently stand to gain
a better share of the Common Market (as a whole) - but -
only inasmuch as it is a consequence, direct as well as indirect,
of the first ideal -

An enterprise driven system designed to create and multiply both capital and industry
by inclining citizen-consumers to be citizen-producers, and provides for these ideals accordingly

a Free Market System - purposed, structured, and therefore, expected to faithfully function

(1) to encourage the maintenance and practical evolution of good business practices,
(2) reward both dedicated management and dedicated labor with a positive workforce culture
and (3) effectively transfer all of its variously intended benefits to the intended good of the citizenry
who by being able to - freely and equally - participate in the creation of both supply and demand
maintains his or her essential responsibility as an active participant in a Capitalist economy
both in the consumption of goods as well as in the promotion of the pertient commercial good
thus exercising free choice as regards the nature and direction of the Common Market.

(Materialism 
confounds these ideals
and places the merit
as well as the burden of virtue
on the Market itself which
can neither possess it
nor become possessed by it.
Citizens get enlightened.
Corporations do not.)

For indeed, everybody
must enter into everybody's labor
and everybody's labor must be aligned and directed
toward the ultimate end for which all human labor must be purposed
which is a just distribution of this world's material goods within the Nation
as a reality proceeding from an equitable appreciation of the National Wealth -
which is always more than just the material component of "being rich".

This is the kind of Capitalism
I should like to subscribe to -
an economy of matter and spirit. 

We are, as a Nation,
to be wealthy first (and recognize it)
before we become wealthy (and realize it).
For there is only one direction toward wealth
and that is to become truly wealthy - for everybody.

Virtue is currency.

Not the rigid, materialistic, purposeless
and therefore, at times, quite cruel and inhuman system
- divisive of rich and poor and therefore, ultimately hostile to both -
an economic system that has lost its ability to steer itself
with the progress of the Nation whose existence
guarantees it own success.
---<--@

What makes you happy does not always make you rich. 
But what makes you rich must always make you happy.

Mabuhay, Miss Malala Yousafszai!

This girl is a tigress; a passionate fighter for the cause she dearly loves: Academic Freedom, freedom for both the brave educators and the disenfranchised girls in her native Pakistan and all around our needful world to respond to each other's mutual call to human betterment and human rights through education.

What truly distinguishes her is that she is a witness to her own advocacy. The strength of her own cause is not something she acquires from others, but something she constantly lives in her life.

Look up to her, dear Starshine, for she is born of the same sky... as thee.

Mabuhay, Miss Malala Yousafszai!

At a time of falling leaves...

I asked the leaf
whether it was scared
because it was autumn
and the other leaves were falling.

The leaf told me,
"No. During the whole spring and summer 
I was very alive. I worked hard 
and helped nourish the tree, 
and much of me 
is in the tree.

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

I then asked the tree,
at a time of falling leaves, 
whether it was scared
to be as bereft of its lush greenery
and it said to me,

"No, seeker, 
for I am a tree".
---<--@

Kanlungan

Nakalilito man
at madilim ang mundo,
mga kapatid ko sa Pangako,
huwag tayong mabahala
at huwag mawalan ng loob -
huwag matakot sa gabi!

Pananalig sa Diyos,
kapayapaan sa ating bansa;
kagandahang loob sa bawa't isa
bunga nang pagkakapatirang
namumuhay sa ating diwa,
at pagmamahal natin sa ating
nag-iisang sambayanang Pilipinas -
ito ang lagi nating maaasahan;
ang ating kanlungan sa gabi
at daan tungo sa umaga.
---<--@

Salutation #186

Fatalism, it is oft implied,
is a cultural predisposition in our Nation
that inclines our society
to accept evil with resignation.

(The Brave Resignation of the First Filipinos)

The first Filipinos,
all of our elder tribes that comprise
those ancient Barangays and their particular communions
that peopled our lands and navigated our seas
long before the advent of Colonial times,
came upon this realm of restless skies
restless earth, and restless seas
and realizing by the power of their own experiences
an understanding of the greatness of these natural forces
sought not to take them into their knowledge
but to dwell in harmony with the spirit of this dominion
and so came they to a knowledge the forces of this realm
by seeking not to bend these forces to their will,
giving to these forces none of their words.

For our first Fathers, the ancients of our Nation,
in knowing the vast forces that dwell within this realm
sought not by their knowledge to master them through earthly will
but unanimously allowed from within each their own cultures
an abiding form of common and equal respect, each according to each,
and all according to their elemental natures as they are to be understood
through their own enduring reality and the character of its freedom
- as they are - in the restless natures of sky, earth, and sea
along with all the bounteous life therein that dwell within this realm
and so worked to introduce themselves to the Providential wisdom
that brought the lightning to the clouds, and fire to the mountains,
thunder to the earth, subdued the skies according its proper measures,
and gave due season to the winds that brought in the Great Water
and thus, dictated the life cycles of the earth and nurtured its flowing rivers
allowing these forces, in due time, to reveal themselves to them,
and the will of Providence to take them freely into their own safety
introducing to them a knowledge of the truth of those things -
adding to their wisdom, and blessing their communities.

Our ancestral cultures
- the lineages of the First Filipinos -
by their free acceptance of the Hand of Providence
in the restless natures of our skies, our lands, and our seas
gained through courage and acceptance of greater forces
an understanding of words greater and more powerful,
adapted to its wisdom, and made it their own.

This is the primary source of that Surrender.

It arose from a very determined will
born of the discerning faith of our ancient Fathers
to harmonize with the unyielding peace of greater things.

It is, as taught by their common heritage in our Soul,
a surrender to the greater wisdom that abide in greater things
freely accepting of the Providence that rightly governs All
and the better knowledge of truths that prevail in Heaven,
recognizing these things as greater and far above
any knowledge that is of the earth.

So we have come
to accept the existence of physical evil
and surrender to the greater purpose for their existence
by accepting the wisdom and the existence of a Divine Providence
that rules over all our choices... and does see beyond them
as a Reality ever so greater than our own, but most of all,
infinitely better than us and more benign than the limits
by which our hearts allow us to perceive and to understand
the pain of their reality, and the tragedy of our familiarity with its evils -
particularly when it touches ours - in our own time -
and in every time.

For we have learned - in due time -
not to question the wrath of natural forces
and as a people have come to bend like the bamboo
to the unfathomable will of Divine Providence
and surrender our pain to the embrace of a Good God.

- selah -

In our own days, seemingly far removed
from the time of ages past - so far removed, as it were -
that we forget that time is not a measure of its merest count
but is always a passage from a dawn limits to an age of limitlessness.

So where time seem distant - the distance is the illusion.
There is no distance in time - only timeless remembrance:

Love and remembrance.

It is tragic what happened to Bohol, Cebu, -
and as we feel the pain of the recent earthquake that shook
the Visayas and parts of Mindanao - we may ask again
the question the first Filipinos first asked, "why?"

It is a right thing to be hurt? Because it is not.

But should we believe
we should again seek to question
the existence of these natural forces,
challenge their reality over our own,
and seek to apply our will of anger or regret
- no matter how righteous they really are -
over forces far above the power of our humanity
to overtly command, and therefore completely prevent?

Because it is also not.

Rather, these forces should exist to question us -

as they did exist during the time of the First Filipinos.

Not to surrender to them but to expect them,
and to learn how to prevail over them
by surrendering them to God.

- selah -

Moral evil though - the things of War,
and the Evil in all evil things.

These we must always question.

For these were always alien to our Surrender
for a surrender to an evil fate is not the Surrender
that was inculcated in the spirit of our Nation
by our First peoples.

They are the source of our Fatalism.

The real words to use is Brave Resignation.
---<--@

Awesome vs. Not Awesome

Awesome - Elizabeth Smart.

Look at you, sister Smart, you have grown in maturity and grace!

Thank God your terrible ordeal at the hands of your jailers have passed and now they - who did abuse your freedom in your youth are now themselves without freedom in their old age.

For they were not able to mature as you did, Elizabeth. You have grown in measure and dignity where they have weakened - and by the grace of the LORD, here you are. 

Their evil was not able to triumph over you, not before, not during the unhappy days of your captivity, and most certainly not now. And so may you long endure.

You kept what truly only belonged to you, Elizabeth, that which is only thine to give that none can ever take from thy soul by deception or force - and now, by the love of our Savior, here you are.

Not Awesome - these two.

Anyare?

Let us pray for Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, may God have mercy on them and teach them of the Justice that does not seek to impose itself by fear but is freely sought because it is a virtue both highly esteemed and deeply loved by the heart of all Mankind - of love and mercy and truth embraced - and freely given - for the repair of the human spirit and the restoration of the human heart.

Personal Reflection

The most important possession of a girl or a woman can never be taken from her by deception or force by any man or creature on earth or in heaven.

For it must proceed freely from her spirit and is truth.

This is not the same as the last ages, the liberation of Woman from the receding tides of things past is ever in effect, especially in this new age of spirit and thought.

Woman as every Man's complementary but equal half - each a human being,
one whole in their persons that - when taken together, through the blessing of the LORD,
form a new creation of Love - in the wedlock union between Man and Wife
wherein new worlds are begun again anew with every human family.
---<--@

A Nation's Treasures

A Nation's wealth is the life and promise of its people - across all our generations.

My people, as we emerge as a Republic in our ages, before we are burdened more and more with the responsibility of material wealth - I want us to remember the simplicity of our happiness in this picture.

It is commonly said that one ought to find one's happiness before doing anything so that anything one does shall be of good profit to the self. This is true.

But lest the world anymore complicate it, this is true only if one can keep one's happiness in the soul and keep it there - present and abiding as a joy in thy spirit - without anything else.

So that in knowing this, we shall always know, as we together undertake to further progress our journey of Country, Earth from Sky - the bounds of our reach and the reach of our limits - where the freedom of Man ends and the Freedom of God begins.

For our freedoms
shall always be our bounds,
our happiness shall to each of us
always remain within their reach
appearing as limitless to our hearts as the Sky
only as far as their limits are known to us here on Earth -
therefore, to transgress the freedom that keep us real
is to distort the happiness that keep us free -
as the gravity of material things tend to do
to remind us of responsibility.

Let us always remain with the truth - we are a spiritual people and therefore, when it comes to our dream of happiness - simply, a simple people.

Everything we need is within each of us - from this unity, God-helping, we shall confidently build.

Now, let us carry on - into the morrow.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.
---<--@

We are to be wealthy first before becoming wealthy.

A Word on our Barangays

O faithful Republic of my people -

Some are all about height and distance,
but thou - let thou be all about width and nearness.

Nearness to the people is what governs;
thy popular mandate to reign is derived from it.

Width is all about completeness;
it is the fullness of thy will to embrace the Nation
in faithful service of thy most sacred trust.

From nearness to the people is derived
the authority to govern thy peers
and from completeness of will,
the ensuing exercise of Power
is consequently recognized
as legitimate.

Our Barangays
are the living sails of our Cities.

If the life of our Cities
are the wellspring of our Sovereignty;
the vitality of this life is singularly an attribute
of the general state of health of each our Barangays.

Our leadership in the Barangay are essential to the Nation
and so we must be free to seek them and they, to seek us -
through the electoral processes that is appointed for this task.

Indeed,
the toughest battles, invisible to the rest of the Nation,
to build up from the Unknown Earth, our Republic Vision -
are fought and won upon the ground of our Barangays.

It is here within our Barangays where - at every age -
the Divine Commandment to prosper and to make good
the sacred trust of our Nation - across our generations -
is everyday from the Providence of the LORD received -
and the labor of the Republic with each morning begun.

It is here where each our citizenship is everywhere exercised
and the blessings of our togetherness with each night kept -
the greater will of our Peace, each and every day won.

They are the oldest
and most venerable part of our Republic.
---<--@


The Diwata ng Lahi, a replica of the ancient Balangay boat, went out for a test sail in Manila Bay on July 11 2009. The word "barangay" is derived from an ancient Malayo-Polynesian boat called a balangay. It is commonly believed that in pre-colonial Philippines, each original coastal “barangay” formed as a result of settlers arriving by boat from other places in Southeast Asia.

Awesome vs. Not Awesome

The only way to counter racism is to foster a culture of racial harmony. 

Congratulations on your well-deserved Miss World victory, Megan,
you do honor to your people with your beauty and grace - salamat sa iyo. 

Miss World 2013, Megan Young, is awesome.


This person ain't (hopefully, just temporarily).

We could be friends, you know. 

Your India, if you really are from there, is an ancient human Nation and a vastly beautiful culture. I am in love with her just as much as I love my own.

Each of our Nations have distinct vulnerabilities, particular to our sufferings, for I'm not claiming India or the Philippines to be perfect either.

But this I do know, we are all possessed of something wonderfully good that makes it all worthwhile.

Because no matter the evil in the midst, large and expansive is our inherent capacity to hope and dream of better days. This makes us beautiful - as Nations and as individuals both - nowhere in All creation may be found such a great concentration of near limitless possibilities than in every human heart.

If only you are able to see that we are all struggling to be free from the fetters that keep us earth-bound and impoverished and incapable of just being happy. Because it is a difficult battle, Devina, this life.

We are rich or poor not on account of what we do to effect our ultimate release from the bonds that keep us unhappy, but on who we decide we truly are - so that each of us may hope to become - all throughout our choices in life - who we truly must - and be who we are - as a creation of a great and good God.

For all human work - no matter how menial - is directed towards this one goal of human happiness - a state of ultimate rest, a condition of perfect peace - a focus without focusing, a being without effort - all religions promise it - all revealed works teach it - all Mankind yearn for it.

In my rich Catholic faith, it is a state of Beatific Vision - the forever being with the Being of God - without the veil of time and the fear of mortality - felicity in Christ! Certainly, I would clean toilets to achieve it - if only it were that easy (or simple) - as many bowls as I can. 

You know this deep in yourself - this longing to be happy - because you too are - just like the rest of us, a human being.

So please try to acknowledge and appreciate what is enriching in our diversity and have a good think about your recent actions here so that, even though they were evil, you may yet profit from them.

May it all add up to your benefit. For Nations are expected to assist each other in this fight.

I forgive you, Miss DeDiva, and God bless you.

Thank you for uniting us more strongly as a Nation.

Salutation #185

If you have been learning with me about politics,
you must now be able to agree
- with conviction - with me - and with each other
that our politics is an authentic human right
and therefore, a duty - expressed in our freedoms,
particular to each of us as citizens
integral to whose calling it is (within our Republic)
to be able to articulate and profess it
freely and accordingly.

(Politics and Violence)

The National Politics, our politics,
is not the rarefied domain of politicians.
We each, as citizens of this Republic of ours,
have a right and a duty to express our own politics.

Where politicians are our political thought leaders,
and very important to the vital workings of our Country -
they are only so because, we the people, must think politics.

And we must think politics to become convinced
- first and foremost, that they're truly ours -
more so than to convince others (that it's theirs).

Our politics must make us convinced citizens
and convinced citizens are citizens with conviction.

And these convictions
should make our politics clear - to each of us
for civic clarity and moral decisiveness are its first fruits.

- selah -

We do not as a Nation
possess in ourselves the National Politics
to argue endlessly about necessary matters
that involve the living life of our national communities
- at all levels across our fullest entirety, seen and unseen -
but to lend to these matters substance and popular weight

first and foremost - steadfastly, purposefully, and certainly

so that by sheer weight of our independent convictions alone

no matter how radically different they may naturally be

the Nation's priorities are accordingly and practically arranged
according to their constantly changing and dynamic realities -
from the ground (the very soil) of Country upward.

(And those of us who are formally called to be our politicians
by their vocations are the shepherds of these national priorities.)

For in politics,
we shall always have healthy disagreements
but we must - know and recognize - these disagreements
in the first place, by bearing the first fruits of our politics - first -
for these disagreements are like the natural bends in a river that flows,
futile without the water that must first agree on a direction forward.

Political disagreements are a natural consequence
of our common freedom of political thought and expression
and can not first exist without mechanisms of political agreement
for these disagreements are a consequence only of our much thinking
(of the things that the water seeks to avert and avoid at the river bends)
and are not by any means the fruit of meaningful political participation.

It is a strange feature of the realm of political thinking
that agreements - to responsibly own up to our Republic Vision -
must consequently lead to disagreements - but, brothers and sisters, they do -
for the strength of our will of politics must be constantly tempered and refined
by the disagreements that give itself sincerely as fuel that serve to fire the flames
of the vital national processes that lead to the betterment of our own convincing
so that in knowing where we stand across the political spectrum that define
the totality of the near infinite reach of our own Republic Vision -
we are reminded by our own freedoms - where we agree in principle -
and that our politics can only be strong - in as much as they shall agree
that within our Republic, under the sheltering skies of our Peace,
there is a season, a time, and a place for each and every good thing.
under heaven.

We who know our politics
know we implicitly agree on something -
that we are.

And that from these agreements must proceed,
even without resorting to any formal debating and/or open discussions
just by our standing still and embracing the reality of our citizenship together,
the challenge to further agree - over and above our disagreements -
because we must.

And therefore,
like Jacob and the Angel,
with every present generation,
come prepared for the necessary battle
of winning together from Providence, our Republic Vision.

- selah -

Citizens who know their politics never sell them out -
neither are their votes for sale nor do they vote on mere whim.

These are souls who walk the ground of Country with gravitas and purpose
and breathe from the very land and air and sea of our people, our sovereign spirit.

And so,
when, we the people, should think of - our politics -
we should not think that the National Politics is somehow dirty
or beyond the capacity of us lesser mortals to understand
(and give its intended victory without challenge
to the unversed, the uncouth and the pretentious)

we think - we are - and therefore, we must.

After all, my fellow Filipino compatriots,
are we not all commissioned by Providence Divine
to be citizens of this exact place in time?

- selah -

With an eye
toward the upcoming Barangay elections
this October 28, in the Blessed Year of our LORD, 2013
- in the Third Millennium of the Common Human Era -
I should like to be able to articulate another truth
about our politics - and one which proceeds
from the thoughts we have outlined above.

Violence (of the physical kind) and our politics
are like oil and water - tubig at langis.

They are two immiscible realities -
to mix them, my brothers and sisters of the Promise,
without stirring against the peace of our national communities
is impossible - one is a break from the other,
each takes different paths that lead to different outcomes.

It is said, my brothers and sisters,
that politics is a contact sport, this is true -
but it is not a sport of brutes - as brutes would like it to be -
the battle of our politics is played out in a human arena
and is a contest, because of the magnitude of its inherent good,
that must always and everywhere inspire the nobility of human beings;
spirit, virtue and truth are its ultimate measures -
and we enter into it because, we love.

Truly, political violence is ruinous to the Nation - to any Nation -
(we may feel this at present at the sad plight of the one Syrian Nation).

For as we are a labor of not a few - or even the many
but a labor of the millions across our generations - far into forever -
an inspired work of the citizenry - and a labor of enlightenment,
unto the very last of our generations - unto the Last Day,

we exist for the continuance and preservation of Sacred Life

as a Pledge not on behalf of Humankind's final defeat
but of the ultimate Triumph of our Cause to exist -
in the everlasting fullness of the Truth.

Violence - it's existence, outbreaks, and continuance -
and the harm it inflicts upon the dignity and promise of Man
- is - what our politics must always and everywhere together oppose
within our Nation and between the Nations within our Family of Nations.

The politics we must profess must unanimously consider violence as evil
unless in order to prevent its own demise, violence itself is deemed unavoidable

and thus, becomes a lesser evil undertaken to save the body politic.

This always holds true
in the case of those outbreaks of armed conflict
- that only becomes necessary -
when the existence of the Republic itself
comes into terrible and mortal danger of War
as an unavoidable duty of the Common Defense
and anywhere violent forces willfully breaks into our reality
against both our sovereign will and our deepest wishes -
as an integral part of our civic responsibility
to universally defend and preserve the National Peace;

a fact that was clearly recognizable just quite recently
by the crisis at our beloved City of Zamboanga.

(The craft of all nations is Peace - therefore,
not all wars must be fought - for not all of them can be just.)

Outside the manifestly ethical considerations expressed

in the duty of the Common Defense and the integrity of the National Peace -

All forms of political violence shall always be the sport and hidden recourse
of those adulterous brutes who have slept in their hearts with the Dragon of War
and shall always and forever - and everywhere - as far as our Nation is concerned
be considered for what it truly is - an abominable crime - a crime against all Nations.
---<--@

Fuel for Civic Thought

The question here is,
as we are cut from the same cloth as the American Republic -
(and can learn from their expression - if we are wise, God-helping,
to better express our own expression of Country):

Where and when will this revolution become an evolution?



This is not just a circle.

Let us not forget that this is also a spiral; an ascent
into the summit of our completion (or a descent).

For there are endless forms of Abundance
(once the material veil of these things
have been successfully breached by the national culture)
and all of these ultimately lead to absolute freedom
and ultimate forms of happiness.

BUT there are also - upon this world - endless forms of Bondage
(the existence of which is the exact reason why we are a Nation -
for we are meant to strive against it - not bow to it - or appease it).

Memorial of the Guardian Angels

Remember LORD, 
the unfailing faithfulness of thy Guardian Angels,
Who deigned through their vigilant and loving stewardship
to vouchsafe in the life of our souls,
the unfailing truth of Thy paternal love and solicitude
over our Everlasting safety.

We ask Thee Eternal Father
Thou bless us with a Remembrance of them -

Who stand invisibly to watch over our thoughts
and guard our memories against the spirit of evil;
who against the Devil and the desolation of the War
keep safe for us - the enabling reality of thy own Truth:

Our Angel Guardians, who keep for us a way of safe return
away from the Night - and the sin which hides in the darkness
unto Christ, our Light, and unto Thee, dear Father of our hearts,
unto Thy Sacraments, unto Penance, and the fruits of Repentance -
which is the fullness of each these Friendships - Thou hath ordained.

Which is Truth everlasting in the knowledge of the Father and the Son
on this day of their Eternal Memorial, O LORD, united in Thy Holy Spirit -
alleluia, alleluia, glory to one Most High God forever, alleluia - forever.

AMEN.
---<--@