Ahimsa

Man while upon the earth weeps
and cries out to God for His Justice!

To the Nations of the LORD, we fly
for redress of this awful plight,
for Man's plight is suffering.

Man suffers evil upon the earth
because he is Man...

Because Man is by first principle a victim.

I never understood the power of non-violence until I read a short essay about it in "War Talk" by Arundhati Roy.

I never understood what I now understand because I never was able to fully apprehend the profound connection it had with violent resistance.

Non-violence is actually the purest form of dissent and when it is given ear, speaks its message clearly and simply - even gently, resounding like a bell.

When it is given ear... for Ahimsa always needs a partner to the dance.

The thing is, when non-violence, especially in a democracy (particularly in an emerging Country like ours - still awakening to the growing strength of its wood), becomes itself a prisoner to popular indifference, we unwittingly abandon a necessary part of our political process by default to violent resistance.

And who wants to dance with that?

Dissent and overcoming dissent is an integral part of the national dialogue. We are free to express our disagreements to a government who is also free to express its disagreements.

How skillful the dancers are define how graceful the dance of the politics of those and every time besides and in a democracy, we have to dance - else, we would reap no results and the nation will grow hungry for the truth. And so we are in constant need of these partnerships - to hope to fully realize each dream within everybody's dreaming, that our forever may be full.

I believe an integral part of our civic freedoms is to adequately understand what constitutes "peaceful protest" - small or large - and I put forward to you, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, that this is Ahimsa.

People Power was also Ahimsa... 

Yes, we know this dance, we just have to recognize that we do.

And should always give preference to it.
---<--@

Greed

GREED is the real dirt... yes -
next to the uncleanliness of the greedy,
the dirt of the poor is immaculate and clean...
Next to the shame of those who in all things covet -
needlessly, without well-regard for anyone or anything,
the simple embarrassment of being needy
is sheer honor and true grit!


Make Bacon.

Innermost Freedom

There are four basic powers professed in freedom - choice, thought, want and fear.



Of the four, the first three are enabling forms, and the fourth an empowering form - all four are governed by brightness or lack of the light - in the person of Man, the first three are rooted in the spiritual and the last one, distinctly in the physical.

These powers bend and incline the will, shape and give force to understanding and govern the ambition of the mind as regard to knowledge and the obtaining of the truth.

These are the freedoms located in the interior most space of the heart - where only the LORD may go - they are sacred, inviolable, and distinct per individual - Angels and Humans both possess them (and, wherever the grace of God permits, in varying degrees, may also become possessed by them).


Freedom is to know Freedom

Australia is a laid back Country

Australia is a laid back Country, it is oft said... but what does this mean?



Every undertaking of Country
counts it's days according to it's own rhythm,
giving them form and measure according to its own spirit...
and those who belong to her nationhood
come to feel this passage in their moments intimately,
more and more so by the count of their years.

I would not compare Australia to other Countries...
I have learned to love her as she is... our Australia Fair
(And to judge none - for no nation of ours is without sin
and as such, no undertaking of Country is without salvation)
And though I know a bit of her, having spent some of my time

embraced by her - and in her spirit, soaking in the life, 

diversity and remembrance of her varied peoples, 

I can not truthfully say I have become blessed enough 

to fully appreciate the depth of her spirit as a nation... 

for Australia is not only fair, she too is ancient -

the roots of her community, quite vast and quite deep.

BUT this is do know -
and all my family and friends over there may agree:
Australia is a laid back nation, fair dinkum!

And when I say this,
I mean she is a land built with human communities
devoted to much happier, and much deeper human pursuits...
a nation inherently aware of a calling deep within herself,
reaching out together towards horizons a little bit above
that of the mere material... and the obviously temporal
for hers is that spirit that values things that are brighter
and more excellent than just the coin... and the clock
(to the point that civic generosity is sometimes exploited).

So there seems to ALWAYS be time in Australia
(at first, this was admittedly a source of boredom for me)
most especially, moments set aside and devoted
to the quest of other necessary things besides money...
(her shops close uncomfortably early, specially on weekends).

And this, according to yours truly, is why she is perceived
by her other kindred nations to be easy and laid back in her nature -
because it is part and parcel of her inherent wealth and wisdom
and so Australia keeps her time and treasures accordingly -
time for family, time for friends, time for mateships enough to mature
time for nature, time for fun and sports, time for learning a craft or a cure,
time for worship, time for politics, time for sacred remembrances to endure
time in abundance, time welling up from the dreamtime - plenitude!
Time enough for the benefit and enrichment of all Australians.
---<--@


Fairness and Mateship

Loyalty that Preserves

I spoke to a mother whose son recently passed basic training, there was a sense of a mother's pride in her voice but also, a hesitation, a need...

I congratulated her and blessed her for raising up before God, a solider in the service of others... but I also felt her need and her hesitation.

Because when you bless, you only invite life. And when you congratulate, you only invoke happiness in life... So I said a quiet prayer for her, her son, and for our world... so much in need of peace.



The truth is
the more soldiers we have, in principle,
in a world awoken from the last great age of war,
the more peace we should enjoy.

- selah -

There are established limits in the defense -
the minimum is safeguarded by the virtue of arms
and the maximum is guaranteed by the peace of the nations
so that in our nation's conduct of the common defense,
to fall short (of the minimum limit) is to find defeat
and to exceed it (i.e. the maximum limit) is to become
the enemy (of our peace) that we claim to fight.

Therefore,
what is required to maintain the balance of peace
in our family of nations is not more and more arms
but less and less - a balance of peace -
until the Last Day, when the purpose of arms
will have utterly and completely extinguished itself.

And so
if today we remember -
what was before those times,
spirit and energy wasted in the quest
to annihilate the life and promise of our nations
- in the name of "peace" -
shall then be brought to genuinely serve it
to prosper our needful world
and bless all our nations as one family
to the hundreth generation.

- selah -

Why is it - during these evil days -
that the more soldiers we have,
the more war we suffer?
---<--@


War is the monster! Do not look into it's eyes - or thy spirit will be lost. 
Rather, understand peace - that you may also understand why we fight.


The Fate of Arms

The Least of These...

The stranger is -
thy soul shrouded in darkness;
our humanity surrounded in suspicion...
to steal from God, thy fear
or to cause thy love, be near!

The prisoner is -
thy soul clothed in chains,
fetters whether placed by man or God -
they who to thy own indifference - bind thee
or to thy own freedom, set thee free!

The orphan is -
thy soul invested in weakness,
in the isolated and the dispossessed;
they for whom thy strength is true power
or they for whom thou art made utterly weak!

The widow is -
thy soul shedding bitter tears
in the shadow of those that were... and was -
they for whom thy hope is daring, o soul of caring!
Or they for whom thy own living... is but a certain dying...

- selah -

Ever to the Glory that was... and Is...
and shall be Forevermore!
---<--@

Human Nations

To be human or not be human? That is the question for the nations of this age.



Into this age, we shall not fight over distinctions in ideologies or religions or ideals or culture or race... No, the times will require us to produce the common fruits of all of these...

For we shall be tested by the challenges of this age by our ability to remain human beings to each other, not only as individuals but as individual nations - able to persevere in the strength of the human spirit and prosper in the one peace of our sacred remembrances.

We shall be tempered and refined by the obvious practicalities of these unfolding times through evils that only we, together as the one Family of the Nations (of the Children of Mankind), can hope to surpass.

The Advent of War

The first time Man saw in himself the image of the adversary of All Nations was when Cain killed his brother, Abel. It was not coincidental that the killing of the first innocent human life upon our world also inaugurated the Advent of War upon the earth.

Now is the time to see through the illusion of the Adversary to find in the reflections of the Evil in all evil things, a way to make peace with ourselves in our world - for this is our world (redeemed by Christ and preserved by our Nations) - and in finding our peace with each other, an understanding of the truth worth defending together - in each other with each other...

...the truth of our common humanity.

Freedom's Common Pursuit

Democracy is like a tree, and so like all things that grow and live and breath, must begin from the roots. It is a natural system of living life born of the seeds of remembrances that must grow where it is sown.

No one tree is the same in the Garden of our world... each of our nations grow at different paces, is found at different ages, yet all are born for purposes that are both fully human and fully divine.

We bear different fruits - each edible and good for the sustenance of All - and all worthy and lasting in the eyes of our LORD, everlasting fruits born from timeless works that glorify with seeds that share - knitting together with the fabric of visible creation, the truth that will prevail at the consummation of time.

We learn from each other not by making each other the same but by seeing in each other what is familiar in All - trusting in our differences, and sharing in our strengths - so that, in choosing to believe in our diversity, together find, in the familiarity of our unity, the peace which is shelter to all mankind; the one Peace of the one LORD.

If thy Peace is God's then know ye it belongs to All Mankind.
---<--@

The Intimate

Look at the heavens above thee, our precious Starshine; perceive and understand...



...that the LORD God hath made the realm of the visible Universe so unimaginably vast so that He may stay unimaginably near to thee in each our hearts: He, the LORD, is the Intimate.

Let us seek to know Him and be in love with His Love.

The Silence of Man

...who was with her...

- Genesis 3: 6

I wonder about the silence of Adam.

The Serpent at the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, did not represent evil, though - in that very particular - it carried an evil will.

Not all Serpents, however, are evil inspired - the Seraph Serpent in the Sinai at the time of the Patriarch Moses, was raised to save many lives.

The Tree itself was not representative of an evil in the Garden of our common origins but of a good. For all things at the time were indeed, very good.

The command of the LORD about the Tree itself which is complete allegiance to God represented "the Knowledge" that was represented by the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil as the not partaking of it, was truth itself.

And in the symbology of Genesis, I am convinced, the Serpent represented the strangest of strangers to Man - the creature most unlike himself. And woman, the most familiar... In fact, the only one, the ONLY one who is like Man, the only living soul (i.e. a soul congnizant of its cognizance of itself) in all of creation Adam could identify with - his faithful helper upon whom he could depend, his loyal friend unto whom he could trust, and his beloved wife whom he was destined to love and to hold as one - forever.

So Adam just looked by as the Strangest of Strangers whispered into Eve's own heart? We all know the result - for we all know of it's inescapable pains. Why was Man silent in Woman's most desperate hour?

I know I wouldn't. The Man in me would most definitely revolt at the sight and would very probably have intervened in some way.

This strange silence, it seems to me, had something to do in the suffering of Woman through the ages just as much as the Fall of our First Parents had something to do with the death of our common humanity from the Original Truth we were once completely alive unto in the LORD and in All living creation.

BUT at the Cross of our Redemption, our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, was NOT silent in Woman's most desperate hour.

In that most tender and loving of moments, as our Savior waited in agony for the embrace of death, He gave unto each of us through Saint John, His Mother - the Blessed Virgin Mary - to be our Mother - the Mother of the Church - and just as importantly - afterwards, our Savior gave Adam back to his Eve and Eve back to her Adam - making peace whole again between Man and Woman - eternally.

"Qui Tacet Consentire" - "Who is Silent Gives Consent".

Can Man afford to remain silent again?
---<--@

There is no weaker sex, only the perception of weakness wrought by the division that the sin of the Devil had also placed between the man and his most faithful helper.

There is only man and there is only woman. And there is only man and woman joined together by God in their particular strengths to form the nucleus of every human family.

Salutation #172 - The Parity of the Sexes

ASEAN is Essential

If we, as individual nations,
are really serious about our being one
in the particular spirit of our region...
Then it's time to start thinking and loving
ourselves like one region... like one ASEAN.

Citizen,
incline thy better thoughts
towards our ASEAN at least once a week!

Start now
to enlarge thy hearts (and be generous!)
to embrace all our brothers and sisters in the region,
finding ever deeper ways to love us all...

ASEAN is essential.
---<--@

Remembrance 
that does not fill thy spirit with love 
to put an end to all thy hatreds 
and overcome all thy wars 
is but thy ignorance of it.

Salutation #182

None of the Seraphs have joined with Satan in his War
and the LORD has, prior to the time of the Children
(which are these latter-day times, beloved of God),
utterly destroyed all evil and fallen Principalities
in the Great Deluge for our good behalf.

So we are
in our every belonging preserved
by Love and Remembrance...

(Love and Remembrance)

Love and Remembrance
when each their truths are realized -
breaks upon thy heart, darlingest Starshine,
clear as the dawn and draw thy spirit decisively
in great ascending motions - leading thee steadfastly
forth and away from the midnight darkness...

For
Love and Remembrance
once realized by thy seeking soul - as truth in the heart
have no parallel midnight - the advent of each of their realities
once it has risen in the horizon of thy mind - separate themselves cleanly
as light is from darkness and leave no trace of shadow nor confusion
to the being and thought of any Man as to which Twilight path
leads to the Morning.

Glory to God therefore, all ye Nations,
sing to the LORD a song of love and thanksgiving;
a hymn of adoration from thy hearts, O Children of Mankind
for the wonder our God has done for us!
---<--@

Lucifer with all his wit,
was not able to convince and commit,
a single Seraph to his fight
for who could make love itself choose
to burn for anything else
but the one Beloved.

Thus, save for his lies,
none can love the Devil true...

But
when God utters
a Word of the Truth,
all hearts upon all the earth
and across all of heaven above
come aflame with Love.
---<--@


To not be afraid, love. 
To not be ashamed, remember.

The Hero of Tirad Pass

Remember,
O noble Filipino soul -
you gallant keepers of the peace,
the virtues that keep thee steadfast
in the spirit of the defense.

Love of God,
love of Country,
love of Sacred Life
- even to the point of giving it -
in the midst of the nation in thy selves
and the assembly of the nations before God
- freely and with joy -
with courage and honor intact
for that same cause.

Remember our own
General Gregorio del Pilar,
the Hero of Tirad Pass!
---<--@

Salutation #181

Of the nations of old, those ancient, fallen and evil Principalities of this world, utterly corrupted in their light, inhuman and incapable of knowing truth, forever drowned by the LORD in the Great Deluge, it may be said, all have perished and inhabit no more the times of the Children.

Yet even as God extinguished these fallen nations of old, and did inaugurate during the time of the Patriarch Noah and his sons, His Covenant with us, allowing for the emergence of the Nations of the Children, their malice still to us persists, their light still lingers on as shadow in this world, and their works of darkness, in the Void of the Desolation of the Angels, remain to haunt with death and calamity those who are not joined with their Sacred Remembrances.

(Chosenhood)

Chosenhood is emergence.

All nations are chosen in this way:
to be tutored in war, tested through peace
and proven by maturation in time.

For we are, so we must -
by our fruits we are known!

Made of golden promises
and paved with good intentions
is the way of war
but the fruits of war
is just as well-known -
(to the memory of the nations
and to the remembrance of man)
it is deception, discord, division,
degeneration, disintegration, death
and desolation.

But the craft of all nations is peace!

All nations that will prevail as one
(the Nations of the Children of Mankind)
were chosen and commissioned
by the LORD - all in the same act -
right at the Eastern Gate,
(the way of our remembrance)
at the beginning of exile time,
at the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden -
each one to emerge in time
according to the purpose of God
all, despite the appearance of darkness,
for the greatest good of all creation
for the LORD wants all
to experience His Salvation.

And Israel, ever beloved,
among the Nations of the Children
is first among equals.
---<--@

Love Recognizes

V. Love Recognizes -



Do not lay all your cards on the table.
Keep nothing hidden in your sleeves too.
Be honest but be careful about the truth.
Be open to what you accept - in thy heart -
but be vigilant about what you receive as well.

Above all, love.

Love that you might know the truth.
Love that you may be open to the truth
and in return, receive more love.

Love that you may always
have something to lay on the table
and love that you may always
have strength enough to love
without holding love back.

Remember, my darling,
the door of thy heart opens
from the inside not from the outside
that you may know to open yourself
- to love and to be loved -.
often... and freely... and deeply.

So love then and in return be loved,
that you may begin to know the truth
even when love to you is yet unknown.

Did not God do the same for us?

Love recognizes, let it begin...
---<--@

When non-state actors detain individuals, do they adhere to international laws?

When non-state actors detain individuals, do they adhere to international laws? That question needs more research, argues Bruce Oswald. (United States Institute of Peace) http://owl.li/nwEVd

 

Sovereignty emanates from the will of the international community of nations, who in turn, in our will of recognition of each other, must likewise recognize in each other - each other's sovereignty.

This enabling sovereignty then is a common trust, shaped and defined by how each our nations, in reciprocity of this trust, wield it from within - in order to establish - on behalf of all our nations as one family - a just and lasting order among each our peoples.

Sovereignty then is all about peace (entrusted to each other) and the good will that MUST proceed from peace (as a common trust) - both within as well as without.

The prevailing of this good will then is that which makes any human community sovereign. For all sovereignty emanates from the people inasmuch as the reality of each their nationhood is alive and aware in them and the remembrance of their generations dwell in greater harmony with the peace of other nations.

Because the truth that is essential to the spirit of all that which is sovereign - which is also the only fruit fitting and proper to it - is peace - peace tempered and refined and translated from spirit and will unto matter and form - peace a priori manifest as truth in the heart of all nations forever and peace as the labor of the life and good will of each our nations, each arrayed in time and across all our generations as each our own particular undertaking of Country, each in our own particular Ages in time, each in relation to each other - and - All in relation to the one God of All Nations.

Nations and their Responsible States belong to each other in this relationship of mutual trust in behalf of all our nations who recognize each other through a sovereign bond of a common and universal peace.

Governments do not only have their respective elections, but just as importantly are also possessed of each their particular mandates to the people - both of which truths are necessary for the Responsible State to faithfully carry out and fulfill their functions effectively as well as efficiently - toward those true and human ends for which all earthly governments are raised, each from among their nations, by the will of Providence.

Non-state actors do represent a sovereign will and therefore, intrinsically lack the authority to act on its good behalf and so transgress a particular sovereignty when detaining a citizen of any particular nation when the detention of said person is an act intended absolutely, as an end, and not merely as a means, in order uphold the higher law of the nations.

My answer here is a resounding NO: Non-state actors not only transgress the rights of human individuals by unlawful detention of any of their peer in creation, they offend the sovereignty of All Nations.
---<--@

To each nation, a particular state -
these two components of Country
fit like lock and key... to succeed
or to not succeed
inasmuch as they belong.

To all nations, a particular way -
upon this way all are gathered together
through our knowing one another
and in our choosing to belong
in the Truth.