Salutation #179

All true renewal comes from the center, so it is with us:

Our Nation has a center, and it is found in God - our one, true Sovereign.
Our Government has a center, and it is found in the Office and the person of the President.
Our Republic has a center, and it is found at the heart of every citizen who yet believes, We are.

(Rule by Council)

Leaders beget leaders;
true servants beget no slaves.

a President is not a ruler,
a President is chief steward to a Ruler -
a servant of free and human government
and a choice instrument of Divine Providence
being the primary caretaker of a Republic
chosen by freedom to do Liberty Justice

in person and in Office, a Shepherd 

to an orphaned and wounded people -
our humblest Servant, and bravest Defender,

the one most accountable to the Nation

and the one most responsible to God.

So rule by Council,
to the voice of Wisdom, give ear -
give patient ear, listen and learn to listen.
Hear for the sake of hearing and
know for the good of knowing,
ever in the quiet of thy heart -
always discerning a path,
always looking for ways,
always seeking for solace,
always thirsting for answers
- in behalf of thy people
and on their good behalf -
bearing together with many voices
seeking in the number of their counsel
to decisively arrive in freedom and safety
to the Several Pillars that give to thee
thy own strength of understanding
that thou mayest decide
for thyself alone
what is truth
and pray that God
may confirm it for thee.

Remember always
thy service to thy people
is a Calling - not an ambition.

Therefore,
pay good attention to Who calls thee
and Whose pleasure it is that raised thee
to the glorious Calling of thy own election.

Recall to thy heart -
it is a noble thing indeed
to be called a Servant to thy Nation!
For thy calling is to freedom; to the Liberty
that breathes life and hope to all thy generations.

So remember the chains - lead and exhort thy brethren -

and work with all of thy people through thy one Republic
to break the long bondage that keep thy Nation Earth-bound

walking humbly before thy God, our Holy Redeemer,
in the path of those great Liberators of old,
the Peace Bringers and Defenders of the People,
who at many times in the History of Mankind arose
to lead the Nations and to break the Evil which prevents -
for thou art called to walk in faith and grace as one of those
who knew, named or unnamed - leaders beget leaders,
and true servants beget no slaves.

Thus, govern by principle,
and serve the Justice of thy Peace -
Enlighten thy people, speak sparingly
and exemplify thy own truth in thy own life,
however you can, with what Grace you should,
ever in harmony with thy own sufficiency,
ever at peace with thy self and thy God,
standing steadfastly.

Do not rule by dictate.
Do not govern by personality.
Do not pander to base instincts.
Do not seek infamy with the venal.
Do not be filled with pride.
Do not be sorrowful.
   (Cultivate a joy in thy soul
   greater than all the sadness
   this world may inflict)
Do not be envious.
Do not be vain.
Never despair.
---<--@

To humble men and great presidents alike... salamat po.

Salutation #178

Of the third of the Stars
seduced by the Pride of Lucifer
who as Satan rebelled against the LORD,
all of the First who fell with the Dragon of War
hid themselves from the LORD Who is their Light
to become for All that Darkness which is apart from God;
a Darkness which is utterly hostile to all things in the LORD,
a Darkness which at the fall of the Dragon overtook the Night
and at the Division of the Firmament became a restless Desolation -
the Void of the Desolation of the Angels, that Night without a Twilight.

(The Void of the Desolation of the Angels)

All that became - the Darkness -
that became for All Creation - that Darkness -
which is of that spirit that is apart from the LORD,
being of Satan and all his fallen and reprobate angels
who at the hour of their final defeat at the Mount of Zion
at the hand of Holy Michael and the loyal Hosts of the LORD,

through the unyielding Light and infinite Power of the one Almighty,

became struck down by the power and weight of each their own sin
were all who hid in sheer terror of God, to fall forever away from Truth -
the Cherubs from their shining Wisdom, the Thrones from their golden Justice,
the Dominions from their limitless Nobility, the Virtues from each their Celestial Arcs,
the Powers from each the Fire of their Zeal, the Archangels from each their Spirit Mastery,
the Principalities from each their Great and Powerful Motions, and the Angels from each Other -
to become something else: Theirs was this Darkness, swift and terrible, corrupted, and infinitely less
than the Glory of who they were and the Greatness of what they were in the LORD and for Our God.

For the Sin of the Satan who was once Lucifer,
the first and the brightest of all the Stars of the Morning,
and the Scandal of the Dragon who - as it fell from the Light,
stole from the LORD, our God, a third of the First of His Sons
struck down from the Glory of Firmament, the Original Unity
of the Everlasting Waters, dividing forever Night and Day!

And theirs is the Night that was from Heaven expelled forever by the prevailing of the Day,
theirs the War that ruptured the Heavens, Divided the Firmament, and sundered our native Skies!
Theirs is this Night and the terrors that lay within the Darkness that stand against our Morning,
theirs is the cold of this Winter and the long nights that must come to pass before the newness of Spring,
theirs is the Void of the Desolation of the Angels and the Oblivion at the vanishing of all that never was
for theirs, at the sinking of every moment, is the dust of every sin and the ashes of every transgression
theirs, the hell fire and the worm, the prison and pit, the despair and Darkness - deaths without a Death,
theirs, the unknowing of all that is, the recall of all human and angelic memory, and the absence of God,
for all Evil is theirs, Satan's who was once Lucifer and his rebellious angelic host fallen from Heaven.
Yea, all of this is theirs, who by the guilt of their own allegiance and the testimony of their own faith
freely undertook to forever belong - neither to the LORD - nor to each other in God -
being in Eternity found to be neither in Service to the Truth that God is - that the LORD is! -
either during the Blessed Hours of the Day or the Holy Watches of the Night, one God forever!

Theirs is that Darkness 
which is not of the Darkness (of Creation)
that at the Council of the First imparted upon the Holy Angels,
a persevering grace of God and an overcoming love of All His Truth
and upon the evil and fallen angels, a blindness that confounded their pride...

And theirs is that Night 
which was not of the Night (of the Day)
that at the Council of the First hid from the penetrating wisdom of Lucifer,
even before the pride of Satan had spread to stain the realms of heaven and earth,
the Plan of the Father with the Son and the Mission of the Incarnation of the Savior of All...

For the Night that hid the babe Jesus Christ from the evil and tyranny of mortal Kings,
gave His Protector and Human Father, Joseph, the dream that took them to the safety of Egypt
embraced Him throughout all His blessed years on earth, shielded Him from the plans of evil men,
gave Him necessary aid and comfort in Gethsemane, and on the Cross so zealously waited on Him
is the very same Night that even before those times, now enshrined in the Memory of the Faithful,
gave to Him, that Hour of Our Final Victory; the Darkness that these days in behalf of the living earth
conceals for our safety, behind mere accidents of bread and wine, the Real Presence of Our Emmanuel
Who is our Light, our Life, and our Salvation - the Glory of All Creation - Who Being of the Truth, One -
is God - in Love of the Truth in Love with the Truth - the Son, and Splendor of the Father Forever!

And indeed, unto this Night forever belong this Darkness
that hid for every present time the Decree of the LORD from Eternity
that sealed for Satan through the Darkness of their own making, their Final Defeat,
and throughout God's purposes in time, hid from the Sin of the angels and the sins of Man,

through the quiet of its Solitude in God and with God, at the calm of those memorable Twilight walks -
the Peace of the LORD both in the Redemption of Man and in the Remembrance of the Nations
(of the children of Mankind) and preserved for All in all - the hope in the good will of All for all.

---<--@

Turn the Other Cheek

When the Lord said to "turn the other cheek", it doesn't mean to invite more disaster. We Christians should understand we do not want to suffer more than what we have to, for suffering is evil.

But to suffer well we must. For our Lord did suffer well, indeed well enough to overcome the world and all it's evil for all humanity for all time.

And so we are taught by our Jesus to "turn the other cheek" as a form of non-retaliation and forgiveness to those who are unjust and seek violent means for violent ends and to keep our Christian dignity even in the face of our oppressors.

When we turn the other cheek, we forgive, we learn, and we let go.

When we turn the other cheek, we desire to break down cycles of violence, teach justice and Christian love over adversarial hate and contempt for human life, and return all souls to God.

When we turn the other cheek, we do not seek to invite more evil to come upon us but seek to invite more peace to come among us - and make what once was wounded and divided, healthy and whole once again.

Let us together meditate on this and pray about it.
---<--@

Salutation #34

The Enemy of the Nations will establish a Desolation.

And he will call it "Peace".

(A Vision of the Desolation)

I saw in a dream

- a few days before the Easter Triduum of 2009 -

a prominent list of atrocities

listed according to their heinousness.

Their frequency was from the most heinous to the least inhuman act

with the most heinous one to be committed against the people twice a year.

There was a camp

much like Bergen-Belsen.

But it was not a dream about the Holocaust.

It was a dream about another Holocaust.

There were people (of every nation)

in the middle of the night,

civilians - men, women, children -

being thrown whole

(to be consumed body and soul)

by faceless men in uniform

into a smoking pit in the ground

and from out of this pit was thick smoke -

the smoke of poison gas.

There was no sound to the dream

only this terrible feeling of growing horror

at this appalling vision in greyscale

unfolding before the eye of my heart.

I felt powerless.

An increasing sense of panic overtook me,

wanting for the dream to end...

---<--@

(produced 20110710)

I. The Naming

The First language knew no words -
it came winged, freely to the heart
and spoke as Motion, and was truth;
understood in action, known to All.

To Old Defiant, an ode -



O Islands,
Who art Thou
but thy own Name!

Who art Thou
but that - the Name
within thy name.

For if Thine own Heart
is within each thine own heart -
Then Thou art a Spirit at-One with Thyself
and a Nation at-Peace among thy peoples!

Therefore -

Must it matter to Thee,
what vanity Thou art called
by a world that knows thee not?

Must it matter to Thee,
what fleeting judgments it spake
than the Truth that ever burns
brightly in Thy bosom?

- selah -

Thou art a Nation
born among the Nations
(of the children of Mankind)
descended from the inaugural lineage
of the Sons of the Holy Patriarch Noah
and so Thine too is the everlasting Covenant
which preserveth the life of the Inhabited Earth.

For Thou art a Nation
among a Family of Nations
each of us distinct yet all the same,
together commissioned by the LORD
at the East Gate of fallen and faded Eden
and together endowed by our God with
each our own purposes and times.

As a Tree among many trees
grown under heaven upon the earth,
We are arisen to bless this barren world
in behalf of the children of Mankind
for the forbearance of Memory,
the Life of the generations,
and the sustenance of
All living souls!

What must matter to Thee - is -
what must matter to the life and the labor
of our Nationhood and not what vanity there is!

For every tree is known by its fruit.

Thou art humanity with belonging.
Thou art sufficiency through reliance.
Thou art harmony and togetherness.

And Peace is Thy common Salutation.

Bravery and Faithfulness
are thy most ancient of names.
---<--@

Near

Was there ever any real distance between our years? No, my beloved. Not when time is an account of the heart. For time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

Why does it seem 

so far to me these days 

when I just realized - just Now - 

the Holocaust is barely but 

two generations since, 

my Miyang...? 

Barely 

one thousandth 

of a thousandth of a second 

by its measure in heaven, 

we may have on earth 

already forgot... 

...and when we do forget 

we become less than ourselves - 

we become less and less human, 

we become less than our nations 

and thus, less and less able 

to know each other 

in the Truth.

---<--@

For me and my Anne, 
June 13 is Friendship Day.

Carpe Diem

Do you still not know why the Stars call you, Old Defiant?



93,000 souls lost to us in Syria. I can not even begin to imagine such indeterminable damage being inflicted on our nation without the heart of our people breaking... I just can not.

God help the Syrian people wherever they may be, may the LORD keep each of them, and may God gather them all in safety and peace, according to His necessary purposes in time and upon the earth, preserving them each in their humanity.

No nation on this earth at this present age of maturity of all human remembrances can withstand such agony without flinching. Yet the hurting, the weeping, and the dying continues unabated.

No, the conflict in Syria I believe has morphed into something else. This is no longer a civil war. What it has now become is a greater regional war concealed as a battle for the Soul of the Syrian Nation.

The incomprehensible pain of all this unrestrained fighting have now given rise to a conflict fueled by a much more deeper division. And there are greater dangers concealed in the midst.

Our Peacekeepers have to be extra alert. Everything vital about the UN mission on the Golan have to be made clear to them and to us, the one Filipino people, so that it should stand out starkly - bright against what we are trying to hold back by our commitment to guard those heights.

We have to be lucid. We have to take care.

My compatriots, this is perhaps, one of those defining moments... we have come to the lead position in this respect, to find a crossroads in the forest of time - we have to take a path for our family of nations, we have to seize the day.

Against the gathering storm, Austria has pulled out its troops on the Golan. We all must understand we now hold the line on the Golan and this line has to hold. It has to hold.

We have to understand, at least in this present time, this moment is ours.

God bless us all, mabuhay!

---<--@