Civics is the craft of citizens. Politics is the craft of the State.
Our first consideration:
We are a nation. This makes us a human people.
We are human beings with common human needs. The cause of our nationhood are human causes. We are through our nationhood sought by heaven on earth that we may be sheltered in peace and sheltered that we may be sent forth in goodwill unto our Mankind.
Because we are, our identity and belonging is established upon a timeless foundation. There are truths about our being as a free and sovereign human community that are changeless and unyielding - as changeless and as unyielding as the peace that in our nation gathers us together and sends us forth as one.
Peace, written in our hearts, is the soul of our nationhood and has been before we were a people.
We are a nation forever. For the peace that forever belong to our nation is an eternal salutation.
The cause of our nationhood are our human causes.
The craft of all nations is peace.
God is our Highest Reliance. The First Defended of our Republic.
Before we know our civics, we must understand our nationhood.
That what makes us human, one to another, makes us also belong to all heaven and earth.
Our second consideration:
What makes us citizens makes us belong to the temporal State and prepares us for greater belongings.
There is no science that serves to initiate the student of civics to a prior body of knowledge about the art of his or her citizenship. Civic aptitude does not come by way of great academic knowledge.
Recall to thy heart the fall of the first morning star of the first firmament and imagine a single star in the night sky, shining by itself from eternity.
Without the company of other stars, shall this bright morning star have cause to think itself dim or bright?
A great intellect may think itself bright only because he or she is always in the company of a myriad other lesser ones. Whether one is loathe to admit this fact or not, it is a civic truth.
Sufficiency through reliance.
We are only as far as each of us allow, eaches only as far as we are.
Peace in the nation allows for each of us to allow that - we are.
Civics allow us to be and to function as eaches - as far as we are...
Citizens who together as a Body Politic form through the democratic foundation of the Philippine State, the one Philippine Republic whole.
Our third and final consideration:
A student of civics is a heart willing to listen... Citizenship is a lifelong art.
You do not learn it by reading alone. You acquire it by hearing it, and following, and leading.
You do not teach it by much speaking. You transmit it by living it, and loving, and remembering.
Apply yourself to knowing your civics and your civics will apply itself to teaching itself to you.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
And let us together in the nation grow bright, certainly brighter than the long night.
Start by simply not littering, if you like. And know why you do it.
Begin by respecting the ground of our earth.
---<--@
Personal Reflection
Civics inform our Politics and Politics shape the State wherein we all are citizens first.
One may be civic oriented without ever being political. One may not be political however, without any civic orientation. Politics that is professed without any grounding in civics is almost always mercenary in form, without any concept of loyalty to Country or duty to the common good.
Is it political to love a person, a thing, a place, a time, or a truth?
It may be that the State ought to be concerned about what we love. That the State may know to withdraw from interior freedoms where these are concerned.
There is no such thing as a wrong love.
Politics shall never find enough of itself in itself to prove or disprove what love there is or what love there is not - in any person. It shall soon exhaust its own expression against a question it is never intended to address.
Where interior freedoms are concerned, the State should have a recourse to exhort the civic spirit of the nation and empower the love of the people to bear the right fruit that more and more of our people may know to trust in better things and therefore, be served eventually by better loves.
---<--@
Our first consideration:
We are a nation. This makes us a human people.
We are human beings with common human needs. The cause of our nationhood are human causes. We are through our nationhood sought by heaven on earth that we may be sheltered in peace and sheltered that we may be sent forth in goodwill unto our Mankind.
Because we are, our identity and belonging is established upon a timeless foundation. There are truths about our being as a free and sovereign human community that are changeless and unyielding - as changeless and as unyielding as the peace that in our nation gathers us together and sends us forth as one.
Peace, written in our hearts, is the soul of our nationhood and has been before we were a people.
We are a nation forever. For the peace that forever belong to our nation is an eternal salutation.
The craft of all nations is peace.
When we know peace, we know memory.
When we know memory, we know when and where in ourselves does hope spring and goodwill proceeds - in the peace of our nationhood and from the nationhood in ourselves (respectively).
God is our Highest Reliance. The First Defended of our Republic.
Before we know our civics, we must understand our nationhood.
That what makes us human, one to another, makes us also belong to all heaven and earth.
Our second consideration:
What makes us citizens makes us belong to the temporal State and prepares us for greater belongings.
There is no science that serves to initiate the student of civics to a prior body of knowledge about the art of his or her citizenship. Civic aptitude does not come by way of great academic knowledge.
Recall to thy heart the fall of the first morning star of the first firmament and imagine a single star in the night sky, shining by itself from eternity.
Without the company of other stars, shall this bright morning star have cause to think itself dim or bright?
A great intellect may think itself bright only because he or she is always in the company of a myriad other lesser ones. Whether one is loathe to admit this fact or not, it is a civic truth.
Sufficiency through reliance.
We are only as far as each of us allow, eaches only as far as we are.
Peace in the nation allows for each of us to allow that - we are.
Civics allow us to be and to function as eaches - as far as we are...
Citizens who together as a Body Politic form through the democratic foundation of the Philippine State, the one Philippine Republic whole.
Our third and final consideration:
A student of civics is a heart willing to listen... Citizenship is a lifelong art.
You do not learn it by reading alone. You acquire it by hearing it, and following, and leading.
You do not teach it by much speaking. You transmit it by living it, and loving, and remembering.
Apply yourself to knowing your civics and your civics will apply itself to teaching itself to you.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
And let us together in the nation grow bright, certainly brighter than the long night.
Start by simply not littering, if you like. And know why you do it.
Begin by respecting the ground of our earth.
---<--@
Personal Reflection
Civics inform our Politics and Politics shape the State wherein we all are citizens first.
One may be civic oriented without ever being political. One may not be political however, without any civic orientation. Politics that is professed without any grounding in civics is almost always mercenary in form, without any concept of loyalty to Country or duty to the common good.
Is it political to love a person, a thing, a place, a time, or a truth?
It may be that the State ought to be concerned about what we love. That the State may know to withdraw from interior freedoms where these are concerned.
There is no such thing as a wrong love.
Politics shall never find enough of itself in itself to prove or disprove what love there is or what love there is not - in any person. It shall soon exhaust its own expression against a question it is never intended to address.
Where interior freedoms are concerned, the State should have a recourse to exhort the civic spirit of the nation and empower the love of the people to bear the right fruit that more and more of our people may know to trust in better things and therefore, be served eventually by better loves.
---<--@
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| Apart from the Love of God, the Devil has no existence. |
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| Or be a ninja, if you like. |
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| Cheers. Steady on. |
