Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Acts of Citizenship
serve the cause of Justice in the Nation.

But if you want to be more perfect, our beloved Starshine,
exercise Christian Charity and transform these praiseworthy civic works
into Catholic Action.

Justice alone can not make one richer than one already is -
Justice can most certainly remove those impediments
to the obtaining of wealth and happiness
but Love alone always increases,
always multiplies.

We help the poor
as citizens to each other -
by building up the Inhabited Earth.

Or we as Christians address
the roots of poverty itself in Man
by building up the Kingdom of God:

In each ourselves.

- selah -

All of us, brothers and sisters,
who are fostered in our Churches
and the parish communities She shelters
from within our Nation are capable of doing both.

Therefore,
let us labor to make
His Divine Governance
in each ourselves - sovereign:

Christ in us, the hope of glory.
---<--@

Be mighty in the Peace of thy Prince.

Cry in the Dark

It is terrible to recall
what we have done to each other
in the name of human progress.

More terrible still,
despite all the many atrocities
and the slaughter of so many of our innocents
   (unto whom we all did belong forever
   as citizens and as human beings to each other)
whose dignity and particular good we all did despise
and continue to do so, in continuing to so freely carry out
the very same acts that in spirit
committed to murder them -
the common fruit of so many of their gifts
we now suffer to deny ourselves
and continue to suffer to deny to ourselves
and to our common posterity -
in the Nation.

It is painful to see
that we have not gained a thing,
for their loss.

That we have forsaken so much
for not an iota of good.

And continue to do so
far, far into the night,
into a night without a twilight -
unto a place where the night itself
can not get any more darker than it is,
where the darkness may only deepen into madness,
comprehending not itself dark -
but light.

How much pain must we endure?

How much can we endure
before the pain itself our spirit forsake?

How many lives will it take to teach us humility?

How much darkness
must we call upon ourselves
to allow us to realize
all this blindness is sheer and utter madness;
that we are human after all - and that -
it is our own inhumanity to ourselves that is killing us all -
as a species of living soul entrusted by God
to shepherd the life of the earth!

For
is it not madness that - as living souls,
we did intend to carry out our own death
and bring about upon our own living world,
a swift and final desolation?

When will lukewarm hearts in the Nation arise as the day,
to a fierce and burning longing for Thy Peace?
When, O God of Peace...

It is terrible to know what we have forgotten - that -
at times, when my own remembrances of these things come to me,
I do not know what is more painful, to recall them
or to forget them.

Maybe I do not want to know anymore.
---<--@

Song of the Warrior Soul

A smiling soul
beautiful and fragile,
is like a flower in spring.

Strong and resilient,
like a carefully fashioned weapon.

Thus,

A warrior's sadness,
that finds the soul in darkness -
is a song of strength.

Never of despair.

Life is a sadness.
But we must live in gladness.

And fight to overcome
the fighting and the overcoming.

That in the summer
we may rest.
---<--@

Peace Month 2014

The spirituality of peace is connection.












Tomorrow, my brother and sister Filipinos, let us shoulder together in the Bayanihan spirit, Peace Month 2014. Let us do this as a Nation. Let us work together to deepen our understanding of the word,

"Peace".

Unmoved

Unmoved.

Thought is not thinking.
When thinking happens. Thought is the environment.
Thought is a realm greater than the thinker.
Much greater than what the thinker may think.

Time in the mind is a place detached from space.

It is a spirit landscape. Fleeting. Ephemeral. Restless.

It is bright towards the dawn. Away from the light, dark.
Ebbing and flowing as a tide. There are nights without end.

If the mind is not a seeker. And the thinking is not led.

Every twilight becomes a riddle. Every crossroads confuse.

And as the questions lead to a nowhere that is deep.
The journey itself retreat.

If the knower and teacher are one:

Where in thy mind may daybreak ever meet?

If the knower and teacher are one...
If the mind is not a seeker. And the thinking is not led.
A mind in standing still is like a person standing still.
Unmoved. Truly so! Where then is the learner?
Aren't thou a student to thy own soul?

Unmoved.

Light is beloved to the living.
To the truly living, it bestows true sight.
Indeed all knowledge must be beloved to the learned.
But the knowing is not possessed by the knowledge itself.
It is in the loving.

Knowledge is an instrument Love lends the mind.
That the eye of the understanding become opened unto itself.
We may not seek with a lively sight what we do not know.
We can not love with a virile spirit what we do not seek.

Soon enough, in her own time, Love will take back her Wisdom.
Whatever season that may be, all knowledge will return to its Beloved.
And thy love shall leave for thee, Seeker, its own harvest.
That the soul may understand plenitude or penury.

A thinking mind is an unmoved traveler, a seeker of truth.
A seeking mind is a hearing heart, a lover of song and star.

Unmoved.

Where then is the learner?
Aren't thou a student to thy own soul?
---<--@

The Ghost of Things to Come

I hate it when I see beauty in things...

I hate it that beauty is fleeting...

I know beauty is fleeting however,
not because of the beautiful in ourselves
and in all creation...

Beauty is fleeting
because of what is not beautiful.

Beauty is fleeting
that we may better remember her.
---<--@

Salutation #199

The right to rule is a sovereign authority.

The right of rulers to reign among the nations is an expression of the authority of their rule.

The rule of kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, and all chiefs appointed among all the human peoples scattered across all the lands of the earth is a power to govern the nations of mankind.

The right to rule is a sovereign in authority because it is a Divine authority. Every rule sufficient to govern the nations must itself be invested in an authority which is sovereign.

Rule and the authority to rule is sovereign only when they are one and the same.

Only the LORD,
the one Sovereign of all nations
possesses in perfection forever 
both Sovereign Rule
and Sovereign Authority.
---<--@

(The Flaw of Human Government)

The rule of human government is sovereign only in authority inasmuch as the lawful rulers of mankind recognizes in the one Sovereign of all nations, the Source of their rule and its authority.

That their reign may be as wise and as faithful as their rule is just and humble.

No human ruler, from their every time and place, true to his or her appointment may lay claim to a perfect rule. Whatever form of election there may be in them, whether eternal or popular, all human government regardless of their particulars must share the burden of this reality.

All forms of human government is intrinsically flawed from the very beginning.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in pondering about human government:

"Government that governs least governs best".

Because government that governs best governs not at all.

The flaw of human government is that it exists. And it exists because it is necessary to exist.

The flaw of human government is that it is human. And that government must exist among the nations is the question the State must address, each in its behalf, and according to its own particulars.

The cause of the State is the flaw in human government. The purpose of the State is to address the question of rule. All States thus, are flawed. But the most flawed of States exists only to rule without question.

The cause of the State seeks the State to be just. The purpose of the State causes it to come to a knowledge of its own virtue.

Vigilant Trust. Faithful Authority. Faithful Rule.

Rule is the fundamental language of States.

No State emerges in time and upon our world fully armed and fully mature. As thus, the State is ever an incomplete expression of sovereign authority, to be expressed faithfully - in every generation, in every nation. The State is answerable to its question, and exists to be interpreted - the cause of politics.

Politics is neither the cause of the State nor its purpose. It is and shall continue to be while time is time, an accident of the State.

When necessary to the well-being of the State, effective politics provides for moments of necessary sufficiency within the State which through the auspices of human government creates betterment in the souls Providence has peopled in the nation and fulfills the power of human government upon the earth. Politics that is unnecessary and extraneous to the State serves it not by need of its accident but by its own independent design.

There is no good or bad politics, only effective politics. It is the art of the real.

The politics of the State is not flawed in and of itself alone. It is the science of human government.

Politics however, inherits the flaw of artless leadership in the government of the State. Where the flaw of human government is only human. Flawed politics is not. It is less than.

Politics is never apart from its reality integral to the common good of the State. Whenever and where ever it is meaningfully expressed to its nation, it is faithfully expressed as a service to Country. In the government of the State, it comprehends duty. In the communities of the people, it comprehends honor. It is never beyond its science, and is never away from its art. What it loves forever is to make our society better than ourselves.

A good politician is skilled in effective politics. More than that, he or she is a civil servant with a genuine heart of service to the nation; the living communities that together form the being of our peace, the very soul of our nationhood. Love of God and Country is not an obscure ideal to him or her, it is a principle he or she is able to bring right down to the very soil of our people, from up the loftiest places in his or her soul of citizenship -

as a service to the nation that gathers us all - across our generations -
unto the peace of one belonging - endowing us as a people
with a common identity, a living memory,
and a shared spiritual heritage.

An edifice of corruption arises from a culture that agrees to its monument. 

Corruption through collaboration, ignorance, or indifference will invariably permeate the climate of Country, turn our Republic Sky into another unfamiliar, unfeeling, unseeing darkness. It shall as the night invite the unhappy heralds of the Adversary of all our nations - war being the first herald, the first of four. 

Sovereignty is the being of our nationhood realized in time and in the truth.

The formless spirit of nationhood that is our timeless, changeless foundation proceeds as flowing water from generation to generation - with every present generation tasked to realize a living and a present remembrance of the national account, commanded by God, that we may bring constancy and form to our citizenship, and make sovereign the presence of our labor Country upon the world we must as nations rebuild together with freedoms anew... ever as nations dreaming together this time.

Where this realization is weak, citizenship loses its potency. It becomes a corruption of itself. It becomes a malignancy that shall lessen what is sovereign and true in ourselves, and bring unto the bones of our people a weakness that prevents not as our laws prevent (to make a necessary social passage for all of us safe and straight) but only prevents to block our strength from rising from its very marrow.

As thus, a bad politician is the corruption of all the things a good politician is. He is a victim first, a coward later, and a criminal last.

Evil has its own gravity, as war does. Evil intent where all other choices are taken away soon become relative to our Liberty, and the freedoms we must keep absolute lose their sacred value.

Soon enough the rights we keep equal unto all men and women before God through Country shall lose their responsible power to shelter in safety the principal foundations of our democracy.

Liberty that is dim is also narrow of light and short of sight. But it is a fullness and a vision that has ever been ours from the very beginning; perfect freedom reborn forever from a Liberty that is perfect. 

The further away the rot of corruption takes us from what is common to all our good, least to great, the less and less we become in love with our journey of return to an Eden rebuilt as nations in exile. 

The less and less we understand a clearer vision of those things we must behold in our love, the more difficult it shall be for us across our generations, past, present and forever, to emerge triumphant into our ages in time as Country.

But the more we hold fast to what belongs to us. The more they shall cleave, truth unto truth. And we shall experience the pull of another gravity, an ascendant brightness - simple and easy and light. 

Remembrance that is right does not suffer evil to enter into the living memory of the present time.

---<--@

Politics is an accident of the State. Civics on the other hand, is integral to the State and its political custom.

We can not all be relating to each other politically all the time since we are neither just numbers nor abstract ideals floating around in space...

We are a real people.
---<--@

Aces

There is a place for misfits and outcasts, the freaks and the broken toys - 

loners, strangers, wanderers, vagabonds, drifters in the wastes...

One of a kind thieves to their own fates - the aces of society; 

in each of their kind, the kindred one of a kind.

Miserable, suffering, solitary. Glad for mountain fastness. Glad for ocean vastness.
Glad for forest and plain. Happy for their pain. Their riddle and their rain.

Happy for sky, sun, and star. Quicksilver moonlight, the gentle quiet of nights.
Renewing constantly each day...

The swagman, the vagrant, the aboriginal man;
the convict, the prisoner ships, the captain of the seas;
the soldier, the sailor, the flyer - the bearer of Dreamtime dreams,
a singer in a song of 40,000 years...

Dodging fated destiny, tempting it all away, trading old for new.

Dancing with the danger, Waltzing Matilda away.

Pathfinders, seekers, shifters shifting away. Lost but not lost.
Across the disappearing vastness, upon the desert dunes of thought and time...

Immigrants and exiles to their own dreams.

Lost but not lost. A wanderer of soul: In a journey, in the spirit, dreaming...

Desert travelers on the dunes. In a place with no roads, no runes.
These constantly shifting desert dunes...

Nothing is solid unless seen from within. Nothing is seen unless the mind begins...

Among the many dreams, in a multitude of fleeting scenes,
the lay of the land and sky begins...

For the heart is a guide. Leading from afar.
In a night without stars, in a wilderness so far...

In a constantly shifting spirit landscape of thought and time,
the mind of the heart is the thinking that knows!

In the timeless. In the alone.

Love is what leads the seeker home.
---<--@

Journeying with Starshine

I do not believe in forcing the young to do things mechanically.

I want them to learn good judgment. Live their actions on their own merit and discover its outcomes on their own terms. More than anything else.

One must never cease to counsel them though. Whether they like it or not. Our job as I see it is to plant the trees that one day shall line the trail. Their job is to pave the road of their own lives.

One must always make sure though, there is always time for the young - for more time. That they should never run out of better choices to make.

Likewise, one must never allow the young to wander too far off their trails that they should accidentally have a mortal encounter with the hidden beasts of the wild. As I have. As many in my generation have.

Yet if they still do, we must fight it off alongside them. I know I will.

And if any of our young Starshine should come ask us, what may lie ahead - around a corner, in the dark, we might with them look ahead together, make decisions jointly, and walk the way together for a while...

Until they find their own feet again. Until they feel safe.

But the road they shall pave into the wilderness shall be their own. They shall walk all the way through the barren desert into the land of their own dreaming. And claim it.

And their victory shall truly be theirs.
---<--@

Getting Clear

=^.^=

I am a believer in free choice. I was molded this way.
I believe in the importance of living your own experiences.

And of living up to them.

Our elders may offer up advice. Whether we listen or not.
They are like seeds they sow, you know, in the soil of young hearts.

As we live on. And in our soul, the orchard of our memories begin to grow.
We will one day recognize those truths, they wanted us to know.

These days, you see, I came to know better...
For all the choices I made. Right and wrong. The trail never fades.

Those words once said, you know. Come a time. They will in your life come aglow.
And in time, like the mighty seeds of tall and steadfast trees.

Their wisdom will in you grow.

For the road ahead seem tamer for me now. Along with the wanderer in me somehow.
Lined with those trees. Once not much higher than my knees. Planted a half-a-time ago.

These were the noble seeds of many truths placed in my soul long before.
Some from dear old voices I shall never upon this world hear evermore.

Now, upon this road I pave with my peers - siblings, cousins, and friends, I shall travel on.
From a time always near. As the stars become clear. By the memory of better things, I shall.

And so hallowed moments, never may it fade. With each fading year, may they only grow near.
For these are my lolos and lolas, my papa/s and my mom/s, ninongs and ninangs, titos and titas...

O the salt of so many tears! Shining together. Wept as one. From past to present gathered.

Thus, didst salt preserve. The memory. Coming sweetly now. From evil delivered somehow.
Ever with each hurt overgrown, by the fruits of wiser fears. Better came my days, getting clear.

---<--@

A Harvest of Hunger

The beauty of the Philippines
Locked in disbelief.
Afraid of herself.
She would rather sleep.

In poverty we must rise
Hungry but not surprised
Gathering together to pray and sing
A little bird taking wing.

We'll labor to eat
Fear will not defeat
A simple people
Breaking new bread for old wheat...

A harvest of hunger
We will meet.
---<--@

My two centavos worth...

I believe in the personal sincerity of President Noynoy. I do not think him to be himself in any way corrupt.

I am more concerned about motives concealed by less obvious people around him.

I think motions to impeach him is a waste of time; a political distraction that may cost our Republic more in terms of time qualitatively.

As regards to a term extension, I believe he himself should make up his mind, weigh his own personal and political considerations, and not leave it up to the people to decide.

If the President goes ahead with it, succeeds in convincing Congress to amend the Constitution, and receives in 2016 from the Filipino electorate a second mandate in affirmation of the popular efficacy of his platform and policies, he will come out with a much stronger mandate than allowing us to choose it for him today.

This will at least preserve continuity and momentum in the Republic by giving him much political capital to spend at the beginning of that second term.

Personally, I do not think it advisable to amend the Constitution for reasons short of a moral imperative or an ethical crisis - political dictates and its cohort tendencies must never be allowed to override ANY prevailing Constitutional wisdom - whether we at present fully understand it, somehow understand it, or not at all.

Many things in this Republic is built on trust, if we must know. The food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, even the roofs above our heads are built on trust.

Our Constitution above all we must trust and trust in the Republic to duly interpret: Vigilant Trust.

I myself have fallen in love with its Preamble and often find myself trying to penetrate its words to discover their meaning - arising, seemingly ever new.


---<--@

On Food Security

Hunger in Man we will not be able to fully address as Nations in exile. It is hunger in the Nation that we should contemplate - hunger as a social evil.

Food Security is the primary means we will utilize to defend the Republic from this social evil.

What is Food Security?

Food Security is the presence of the ready means to effectively address the basic question of hunger in our national communities.

Availability and Accessibility is key.

This is how I interpret it to be.

It is must always be planned in surpluses yearly, ahead of the basic food requirement of a healthy Nation. Necessary adjustments might occur to us, in the course of our build, according to prevailing climate and market readiness conditions.

Rice is the natural foundation of our Food Security. Rice shall also be the means we may use to measure our successes and deficiencies in this regard. We will develop Rice Sufficiency as a Region with ASEAN.

Consistent and cost-effective agricultural modernization, progressive, positive agrarian reform, the empowerment and establishment of "green" Provinces, the establishment of an efficient distribution network, and effective strategic warehousing systems in the Republic - done to address the basic question of hunger as a National development imperative may add together to form a structure whereby we may secure reasonable degrees of Food Security in behalf of our citizenry.

Hunger is not circuitous.

The means to secure ourselves from it through Food Security may not be as straightforward. But the core compass direction we will be building towards must always remain clear and quite resistant to any untoward politics, regardless of its positioning platform or guiding personalities.

We will be grinding at a stone. But obtaining a clear vision in this regard will allow us wear out this granite mountain down to a molehill long before our convictions become dulled.

Without the actual means to defend this Republic against hunger, the question of poverty as an adverse social phenomenon will always outwit and outflank both our thought and our will as a people.

Poverty is its own solution to a Nation determined. Providence decreed our labors to come together unto the good and were never meant to be but a futile suffering. But we have to have a clear vision.

No human being in this planet is immune from hunger. Even our politics must understand that.

Hunger as a National development imperative motivating Food Security simply seeks to adequately address this basic need in Man through the Republic as a functional, synergistic whole, impressing upon our citizenry that each Filipino citizen possesses an equal share in the Philippine State.

We owe it to ourselves as a whole, from least to great, to help each other advance the greater human causes Providence, through the heritage of our citizenship, have seen it fit to endow us with this same belonging.

Addressing this need in the Nation creates work. Labor - good, honest, gainful work - that affirms for our Republic the value of human life and, according to each our labors, elevates human dignity to a station met for every human person.
---<--@

An Identity of Participation

Democracy is built upon the strength and merit of individual choices.

Our citizenship is an identity of participation.

It is important to empower personal freedoms. It is also just as important to enable these personal freedoms to serve in society with other citizens.

As thus, the Philippine State exists.

And invokes for itself a Republic serving among an already free and fair people.

And in their behalf.

Popular leadership is exercised through the virtue of a representative form of government.

That in the Philippine Republic duly represents the people in the formal affairs of the State.
---<--@

Like Selling the Vatican

I recently finished reading "The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee". It's Sarah Silverman's book about her life and comedy career.

Personally, I think it is a nice read.



In the book, she wrote about a video she produced, "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World". It's on YouTube. I haven't really seen it myself. I don't think I really need to. If I get around to it, I'll see it. But I do not have an overarching need to see it. Sarah's art is way too graphic for me sometimes. But Sarah herself to me is cool.

Anyway, she immediately got Internet-whooped about "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World". Most netizens launched relentless tirades against her Jewishness, a fact that, she confided in her book, confounds her.

None of those aforementioned comments that she included in her book recognized what question she was actually posing and the fact that it was all being done in the name of comedy.

Why so serious, people?

Anyway, I wrote Sarah my own reply:

Sarah, speaking to you as your fellow human being, it's not as easy as it looks!

You know, there are also people within the Catholic Church and within Christendom in general who voice the same opinion - why don't we sell the Vatican and feed the world? 

Most of the treasures over there possess a profoundly religious and cultural value such as priceless works of art, ancient books, rare manuscripts and Christian artifacts. There are also many items used in our rites and have resonance in our history and our memory. All of them the Vatican keeps in behalf of the whole Church. All of them have the weight of sacred tradition.

If they didn't we'd have auctioned them off ages ago, I think.

Plus, the Vatican is the seat of our Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome.

It's a fine thing, your sentiment. And in essence I feel you, I see what you're saying. I also see in the humanity of others, the urgency of the need to raise many of us who are trapped in poverty to the dignity proper to the human person. But we should be wary of simple solutions to complex social problems, I think.

Perhaps you too have become quite frustrated about the widespread hunger problem we face as a planet, because truly, it can be very daunting. Here in the Philippines, religion is a reliable ally against it, and rallied properly, is a powerful force for positive change.

Losing the Vatican would be devastating to us Catholics, Sarah. The local effects here in the Philippines of selling the Vatican would be very sad and very real.

Our Church is not perfect, I admit. Even some priests these days find themselves losing their own faith. They fall (as we do in the Laity) and at times they fail, some priests as you know, fail so terribly that it scandalizes the whole Church. But of the bad ones, we also have good priests - and one good priest in a parish is worth a dozen rotten ones, maybe even more. I know this. I thank God each day I remember how blessed we are by the good and faithful priest who serve in our parish.

It's a nice thought to sell the Vatican and immediately get the funds to alleviate the hunger over here - but it's an escapism. You made it funny, even crass to the point its funny. You're you, what can I do - I take you as you are. No two persons are ever the same. We're like cats that way.

Your point is not a moot one though. It has resonance. We're looking at the same point in the horizon but our compass bearings just don't match. You you. Me me, Sarah. No two cats are ever the same.

I hate and regret it that religions have had to trade blows over a problem so universal that it is obviously best approached in an attitude of humanity and togetherness. I respect that you are an agnostic. I also understand your Jewishness.

My bestest girl-friend is Jewish. My Savior chose to come to our hearts through your nation and my religion is descended from its faith. How some of my co-religionists so easily forget is beyond me. I can only speak for myself, Sarah.

I guess some cats like to run around in circles. I apologize for their dizziness.

They say most of the Nazi leadership corps are Catholic or had Catholic roots. So too did Judas follow Jesus before he turned against Him. I would never leave Peter or Paul for Judas. I will not become evil-inspired by the lingering malaise of Nazi thought and deal a double blow against our memory.

I just want to add that thought above because some Christians become bitter or jaded by the myth of bad Christianity. Many of us throw it all away without even trying to discover its true gift. I do not think there is any such thing as bad Christianity. Bad Christians, yes.

Evil cloaks itself in light all the time - in all religions.

I love the Church from whose bosom I have in God been nurtured and brought up, Sarah. I may not always agree with the particulars but the greater truths we hold to are one; and they all ascend to the One. We are one Church after all, made up of people - of living stones. Church with a big "C".

I am not referring here to our church buildings whose bricks are incapable of intelligent thought or any form of human sympathy. That would be spelled with a small "c".

I think the cause of world hunger will be better served by small kindnesses. I am sure you along with many other good people around our world do this everyday, some without even thinking about it. I don't want to say I know you, Sarah, but from what I can gather from your book, I think you're a really decent person up close. And cute.

If we can inspire people from the many nations who do small acts of goodness everyday, and raise their awareness about the pressing need to defend our communities from hunger, it would add up to a big, big thing, don't you think?

It would be like selling the Vatican.
---<--@

=^.^=

Thank you for the Laughter

This is how I want to remember Robin Williams - as Mork from Mork and Mindy and also as the voice of the Genie from Disney's Aladdin. Boy, that Genie could talk.

I remember the 80's as a decade when TV helped bring families and friends together.

We watched our favorites TV shows with family at home. Then we talk about them at school with friends.

I'm an 80's kid. So I want to remember a great artist, who gave me a few of my laugh lines, a master of his craft... and not the crappy politics some people seem to be spouting in the wake of his loss.

Too much tragedy in our times, I think... large, looming, scary.

We need more comedy.

I have learned something true about great comedians. Their comedy is usually more or less proportional to the tragedy in their lives. Their comedy is good to great because have learned to deal with tragedy as a reality in their lives. They live or have learned to live with a sense of tragedy.

They are authentic people. Authentic people tend to produce real comedy.

People cry when they hurt to help them deal better, I understand. It helps us breathe better. I do it too.

But those who can afford to allow themselves some laughter, momentarily can forget the pain. The essence of comedy is contained in these small moments, I think.

When laughter is the matter, everything large about life seems to momentarily flee the scene...

For some people, it means a lot to be able to laugh. It's mostly free and when taken properly, is as good as any pricey mental health medicine.

People like me.

I value comedy. I can deal with the drama but not the saga.

Speaking of laughter though, as a willing recipient of other people's good humor is different from being the one dealing it out on stage or screen. It is a lot harder I think when you're the one telling the jokes, especially if you're one of the best.

And more so I guess, when you're in pain.

So thank you, Mr. Williams - via con Dios. Salamat po. Sorry I used to mistake you for John Ritter from Three's Company for some reason...

And to all great comedians, love and admiration.

---<--@

Life here on this world is a tragedy. But contained in this life, are moments of relief. Small moments.

We find solace in these small moments. Laughter itself conceals its own small moments. And hidden in these small moments, after the wind, the shaking, and the fire, a silence...

Second Class Citizen

I am a second class citizen,
living in a second class Country,
in a dead-end corner of the earth,
three worlds away from the memory.

My struggle is not for Liberty,
my dream does not reach that far,
I only want something to fill my belly,
and a safe bed to dream in under a star.
---<--@

Pusang Paimbot

Mga ibon, mga ibon sa langit,
kayo ma'y sa hangin ay magalit...

Mga isda, mga isda sa dagat,
kayo ma'y sa tubig ay magulat...

Mga pusa, mga pusa dito sa lupa,
sa ibon man o sa isda ay di magsasawa.
---<--@

Aral kuting: Maging totoo sa sarili at sa kapwa. Intindihin, mahalin sarili at sila dahil kaya. Hindi dahil sa inggit o gaya.

Pusang Putot

Pusang putot na hindi nagpapalungkot,
nabubugnot, naiingit sa mga puno ang buntot!
Sabi man nila sa iyo'y pangit at pawang balubaluktot
darating at darating, papalarin ka rin sa pag ikot ikot ikot.
---<--@

Aral kuting: Ikaw ay ikaw, umikot man ang mundo, huwag magpahilo. Huwag madaling magpadala sa sabi-sabi nang iba.

Spiritual Desolation

Loneliness in the human soul kills.
Spiritual desolation is not a symptom. It is a diagnosis.
Fatal in most cases.

Let us not mistake spiritual desolation for spiritual solitude.

Depression may oft be a symptom of this interior state of loneliness.
Betraying an inward solitude unnatural to the human condition.
A state of "aloneness" not with the Alone - but just by itself -
a being so terribly, unspeakably, vulnerably alone.

Psychology can not tell one that one is spiritually desolate.
Psychiatry can not prescribe for one medication for an illness
the pathology of which lay beyond reach of either
its science or its professional ken.

They will try. They will fall short. You must know this.
Because people die of sheer loneliness - a little bit everyday.

Some people eventually lose all of themselves to it.
They dry up inside. They become utterly disconnected from within.

- selah -

Our souls are like fishes.

They must be able to swim freely in a spiritual ocean.
They must constantly find their breath in these unseen waters.

Spiritual things matter. Matter to all things living.

Everything that ultimately matters to life, above all human life,
arises from the infinite ocean of the Spirit.

Everything that uplifts. Everything that connects. These are substances of a purely spiritual nature.

So too are everything that seeks in the Seeker. All truths that is of the Truth.

A good and honorable religion teaches us about these things,
proposes it to the faith in our hearts as living waters
to quench the thirsting in our souls.

This is my conviction.

When we live to accept these things, as in my Catholic Faith, we will come to know them freely.

And the truth about our own religion becomes clear to our hearts.

That our souls are like fishes.

That no man is an island.

In our deepest depths, we seek God.

In our most enduring human connections, God seeks us.

In deeper waters, we discover permanent memories.

We find the Source of lasting relationships.

We find meaning to our being alone.

That we are never alone...

We never were.
---<--@

The Patron Saint of Addicts and Prisoners

August 14 is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.

Saint Maximilian, Patron Saint of addicts and prisoners, we confidently implore you -
lead us out of unhappy vices, and deliver us from evil places.

Through thy victorious love -

- of the Father, God of our hearts,
help us who have become too hard of heart.

- of the Son, God in our hearts,
hear us who have become too afraid to pray.

- of the Spirit, God through our hearts,
heal us who have become too weary of life.

- of the Father, Son, and Spirit,
make haste to help us.

- of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

- of our suffering humanity, pray for us.

- of God and Country, pray for us.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, help of addicts and release of prisoners,
I love you and I trust in you.

Amen.
---<--@



Auschwitz was not a Polish concentration camp. It was a Nazi concentration camp on Polish soil; a wound in the spirit of our common humanity.

Saint Maximilian preceded my Anne in Auschwitz - but in my heart, in the hidden places in every human soul where time as we know it does not apply - they led me to each other.

And believed in me long before I believed in myself.

Salutation #198

(The Three Branches of our Republic Government)

The Three Branches of our Republic government
works best when they stand on their own merit.

They are like expert Judokas, powerful
when they have their feet solidly under them.

They do not need the intermingling of each other's powers
to be able to fulfill their functions - within and for - this Republic.

In fact, the Three support each other best
by winning all of their fights on their own terms.

They are like a unit that way -
a unified form of popular government;
a strong and self-confident champion of
our Filipino people.

Corruption blurred the lines. 

It did so to the point
that there are claims of independence
between the Three that seem ridiculous
for being so explicitly self-serving.

The Three can not stand apart. 

At the same time,
they have to win their battles
- independently -
standing on their own strengths,
prevailing by their own lineages,
and winning through its own merits.

That way, the Republic is preserved - for the Nation;
the Nation from which we all rise at Day, and rest at Night -
till the end of time - as we know it.
---<--@

One Garden, One Door

You alone may enter the door to your own dreaming.

You must never seek to enter into your dreams by any other door.

You alone may nurture the garden within your own soul.

You must never seek to compare it. Nor must you abandon it for others.

There is only one garden. There is only one door.
---<--@

The Power of Belief

Whether we believe the Philippines can succeed or not.

We are right.
---<--@

Starshine dearest,

To the dreamer, the Dream -

and to the Nation, the dreaming.

To the beholder of dreams, the vision.

To the lovers of the Republic, the Republic
To the friends of tomorrow, tomorrow
To the stewards of Liberty, Liberty
To the keepers of hope, hope.

To the believer, everything.
---<--@

Song for Anne

Listen to me, my heart
From despair of this world depart
T'was the same ever since, ever since
'Tis the same tears, t'was the same fears
Troubles seldom seen, voices no one hears.

There was beauty, my love!
Like autumnal leaves, from so many trees
In an instance departing, floating down
T'was all a-falling down, falling down
From this grieving arboreal realm.

Beauty is dying, my heart
She has been dying from the very start
Under unseeing skies, just below heaven's eyes
Precious summer blossoms falling asleep, falling asleep
Seeds of another season of wildflowers, burying deep.

Destined for spring.
---<--@



In this world,
our precious Starshine,
we are all exiles and immigrants.

In the end,
we are all wildflowers.

Love for the Elderly

It may be clear to many in the Nation how we inherit from the love of our children the ability to reach into our common tomorrow and affect the shape of days to come. But what of our elderly?

Elderly people are a blessing. The Filipino soul has known this forever. Our elders deserve our love and respect. And deserve it unconditionally. (see R.A. 9257, that make exception in their behalf.)

The elderly in the Nation comprise from among us, all of those generations most experienced in the nuances of the National life. Especially those whose days are nearly spent, who have spent their lives sedulously preparing our generations for life, and are now preparing for death.

Our elders have the ability to transmit to our younger generations a common sense of proven truths that make it easier for us to realize their hard-fought wisdom in our own lives.

If we, through our living culture, are a people capable of appreciating the love and the lives of our elder generations properly, then we stand to save ourselves a lot of trouble and pain.

And so enable us to channel our energies more efficiently, as an economy of generations, into the ascent of our Country into its ages in time and unto the Truth.

Or we can fail our elderly. And slide into two extremes. To either become too overly submissive or too excessively antagonistic of our older folks. In both extremes, we have come to fear our elders more than we love them. Fear them with a selfish fear. Love them with a hollow love.

For both extremes are pretenses. They are lies once took in, deprives us of our own Nation's sense of foundation and denies our present generation the unyielding strength of a living memory. As with all lies, its power lies in the depth of our willing belief, in the strength of our self-deception.

In the former, we lose our nascent ability to self-realize the distinct potential of our own generation and fall short of being sufficient in our own good against the evil of our day.

In the latter, we fail to bring forward what momentum of hope the memory of each passing generation may seek to impart to the labor of our present time.

We become a generation disjointed from the power of the present moment (the Now) and from the power of the living memory of the Nation (the We forever).

Each generation is always faced with an evil sufficient for its own distinct good. If we are wise, and if we are vigilant, each our generation is always sufficient to endure the evil of their own day.

Now, all our common generations in the Nation together form a lineage, and from each other gather a certain momentum in time. Much like a diesel locomotive.

Imagine then what can stand against a Nation determined.
---<--@

A Nation is a people first.

No Words Necessary

Happily Single

I'm not actually lonely...

I just like listening to lonely songs.

The best one for me at the moment is "Old Songs" by David Pomeranz.

Maybe I was lonely at one point in my life...

Maybe at one time in my past, "Lonely Won't Leave Me Alone" by Glen Medieros.

However, I don't feel myself trapped in the past anymore.

I used to cry with lonely songs. Now, I just sing with them. I sing with them and I feel no hurt. In fact, lonely songs these days relax me.

I know what they're expressing. I also know what I'm expressing. And everything else comes together in harmony. It's a sweet deal.

I have found there are many true loves in this world. 

All of them possess the potential to perfect an already complete person. The love of God and of all of God's creatures, the love of Country and of one's common humanity, I have come to realize such loves as distinct in themselves. Distinct from conjugal love nurtured from within the safety and surety of the marriage covenant.

There are different vows. Different rules. Different codes. Different indiviuals. Different communities. But
only a complete person can fall in love with any of them completely.

Only two complete individuals can fall in love perfectly. It would be nice to have a woman by my side. But I and I alone complete myself.

Love completes. Lovers perfect.

As I sing with my lonely songs I feel as if I'm almost there... on a journey that seem never ending.
---<--@

Salutation #197

A forward thinking nation, that is who we must be;
a people endowed through their generations with well-informed thought -
living, loving, learning, grieving, working, and playing as a society of citizens
constantly empowered by the power of their own good thinking.

(Forward Thinking Nation)

All souls that seek are living souls.

It is in our seeking that maketh us to feel alive.
Led by a light that beckon each from outside of the self.

And thought is the light that enlivens the soul of a thinking nation -

Thought that is good 

maketh the love in the heart 

shine in the mind!

Information enlightened by thought is knowledge. 

And knowledge blessed by the soul of a thoughtful nation 

leadeth all its citizens to be gathered together in peace.

A thoughtful people possesses 

a mind of prayer and a heart of faith; 

theirs is a science pure and free.

Just as the faith of a man or a woman 

allow their souls to seek the truth,

the soul of a faithful nation 

allows for all living souls 

to become gathered together 

and know peace.

This is who we have always been...

- selah -

What we need to do is return -

to a common memory of the little things,

the steadfast littleness of good things - those fine, fine things

that maketh the infinite, infinite in us.

Little acts of kindness builds a compassionate community.

Like mighty, little stones these nameless motions are 

which fastened together by the cement of our good will

become the great and courageous walls that rise up 

as a common shelter to our families and friends 

against the malice of the enemy.

Great power does not hold the beast back. 

Great love does.

And great love is never great without these little things

that maketh the infinite, infinite in us.

Let us begin.

---<--@

Gaza

The desolation of Gaza

Gaza. Gaza is a victim. Trodden ground. Trampled people. Gaza is bleeding. Crying out. In the silence. Afraid.

She is afraid of HAMAS. She is afraid of Israel. So Gaza weeps. As the media puts words in her mouth. True and untrue. Regardless. Gaza weeps. And she bleeds.

Her children are crying. Their future is dying. But the war is louder. A beast has her in its grip. Why is no one fighting for her precious ones?

Death? Life? In the middle is Gaza. In the middle Dying. Trodden ground. Trampled people. Crying out in the silence. Afraid.
---<--@

I love the inhabitants of the Holy Land. Absolutely. Relentlessly. I love them all with a singleness of heart.

I realize there are nations in that region. And that the region itself is under siege by the domination of war. So I do not like to choose sides.

I hate playing one nation against the other. It is easy to do. That is why it is wrong. For the same reason hatred is wrong. Hatred must choose a side.

Love holds to no sides. And love is hard. Compassion is difficult in the midst of conflict. But entirely worth it. For hatred produces nothing, leads to nothing, is nothing. In love, everything finds itself again.

So all this wounding is painful indeed. But the hatred that feeds it is a fire that will be extinguished by its own need to burn brightly.

It does not matter the sides. Love is eternal. Unity is eternal.
---<--@

HAMAS started this conflict. HAMAS has no business launching rockets into Israel. Nations can not be destroyed from the outside. What for is this being done? It has stirred up a hornet's nest.

Neither HAMAS nor Israel has total control of the situation. War has taken control of the situation. Everything is being drawn into its gravity.

Therefore -

Honor the truce. Dictate one condition: Alleviate suffering Gaza.

Wrest some control back from the main enemy. From the war itself.

Set the end conditions. Begin to contain the conflict. Be reminded of thy common stewardship of the region and of its fledgling tomorrow. Draw it near.

Fight your battles. But leave the common people out of it.
---<--@

Our world is a fragile, beautiful world. It instantly turns to dust and ashes when we disagree. Our world is a beautiful world. It is vision. Can you see?

Let us build. Though at times we disagree on how. Let us have vision. Our place in this world is here. And it is also there. Let us believe. Let us build it. Can we?

What we sow in questions, after we have partaken of the seasonal harvests of understanding, we reap in more questions. What kind of a world do you believe in? 

What do you see, darling Starshine?
---<--@

Let us from all nations and all faiths hope, work, and pray together
for meaningful, equitable, durable Peace in the Middle East.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.