State is sovereign Expression.
Country is sovereign Motion.
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Every State is unique. No one State is ever the same.
In a Garden of Many Trees, each State speaks for a distinct type of tree, intended by Providence and its people to bear, harvests of good and edible fruit - each in its own due time, across seasons in time.
Each tree is particular to the nurture of its own Nation; each a labor of living life belonging to a unity of human peoples, and to their living and breathing economy (of generations). That all may in time be - in fullness gathered - by the Peace all their generations shall come to possess forever - as an everlasting heritage in the LORD and a present promise of His good will.
So shall it grow in time. We see this present promise of good will in the spirit of our Constitution - the words of which however splendidly stated and contained therein, we all instinctively know, shall never be enough. For an outline alone will not produce. Country is motion.
Peace is the soul of our nationhood. The fundamental spirituality of this Peace is connection. Our Nation is a formless spirit. We are always more than what appears to the external eyes of this world -
a peculiar labor we are indeed...
for as Nations together,
we are sown to the gathering,
sworn to sacred life, and dedicated
to those shining ideals (such as peace)
unintelligible to the darkness of this world.
Therefore, my beloved brother and sister Filipinos, any meaningful faith in our peoplehood must embrace the whole of our nationhood - past, present, and forever: here, now - in our hearts.
That the common trust of our generations be safeguarded by the good will of every generation, each in their own present time.
And the living economy of our common Posterity proceed to gather for all generations, the accumulation of the Means National, spiritual as well as material, to enable the present to prosper our Peace as well as our Peoplehood through the ages of our Country in time.
Wealth itself - where Country is faithful - may become a means to produce more Wealth.
We become citizens to each other when we belong. The peace in our souls is the soil of Country. The more faithful the Peace, the more sovereign the Being of our Nation in our souls.
Realizing the Peace of our Nation in ourselves makes our Labor and its Trust truly present upon the lands of our earth. We become a sovereign Nation upon the world.
We profess the Ideals of our Nationhood unto other sovereign Nations through the Philippine State. And in their Good Will, through the grace of Providence Divine, we are duly recognized before their Assembly for what they as Nations themselves possess - we claim our eternal Right to Family.
Our Constitution is not a rote study of history. One does not reach back to collect it.
It is the foundation of a great story.
Between its covers is the unfolding of an epic journey every generation must live, each in their own present time.
It is like a thing we must trust - to be more than what its pages are, containing a vision that has been ours forever.
If we are able to hear what it speaks, more than just read what it says - our Constitution, by its every present legal iteration, shall tell us something more about ourselves that is true.
It is up to each of us to discover what it is... it is different for each one.
Do not just study it. Trust yourself to love it enough... and receive it as if you already have.
If our Constitution merely stayed on the paper it is published on, my dear Compatriots and in particular to you, O youth of this Nation, there may come a day when there shall be none of us left but the ghost of a people on paper; a cautionary tale of a labor and a light of humanizing civilization that could have been.
And the world shall be a lesser place indeed - for every tree matters, every life matters; ever drop, every fruit is possessed of a value that is more than what the darkness of this world may ever understand.
Why were we Nations in the first place if our work was merely the annihilation of all life?
Why ponder on a circular thing that is not worth our time and our thought?
Furthermore, as we walk the Way of Amity with and among all our kindred Nations -
How we relate to other States is important. Just as vital, at times even more so, is how we relate to each other within our own Philippine State.
We come to a respect of other States through knowing our own labors, realizing the necessary battle we together stand - to obtain a maturity of peace - upon this world is hard for all peoples. That all States are weakened when every one of them absolutely believe they are strong - against each other.
We must always presuppose something human about all human States. That all Nations arrive - in a world intrinsically hostile to our common humanity, flawed and incomplete. That no Country springs up upon this world fully mature and fully armed.
For as Man is, so shall his Nations be.
War is an exception. War is a failure of peace. It is always an outcome of a battle we have already lost. And were we as Nations together to become so deceived as to think that War is a native of our earth, we will begin to believe all our necessary battles may be won through war. That this devouring beast was a faithful steward to our human realm. That it has precedence over us...
And we will certainly lose our place to it.
On earth and in heaven.
To sum it up, we have hope. Never despair.
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