Salutation #80

I saw a vision of two worlds -
two paths leading away from each other...
two choices - with nothing - in between;
one is a freedom that leads to a future bright,
the other a return to the darkness of the night -
a choice begun in every human heart
a choice to return us again from the start.

(Crystal Blue Sphere)

I SAW IN A VISION,

a crystal blue sphere,

shining with a multitude of living lights.

The vision came to me quite abruptly

while I was awake in the day,

riding a jeep home from work.

The vision stayed for a time before me as I wondered.

I wondered at how wondrous and beautiful beyond imagination it was

that I thought I was seeing through the eyes of angels.

Then a darkness came over the vision

and it seemed to me for an instant that it was no longer there.

- selah -

But it was, O my nation,

before me was a world so overrun by sin and war

that it was no longer distinct from the nothingness of the void -

an unknown earth bereft of light,

forsook by heaven,

and forgot by God.

---<--@

My New Year 2012 hope -

I pray for more leaders who are accountable to God first that the LORD may craft them into proper instruments of a government wholly dedicated and responsible to the people they serve.

Leaders who at every level of government embody the definition of a popular mandate being interested in neither fame nor notoriety but in establishing in our nation through their persons the divine authority that makes us all equal before the LORD both in dignity and in promise.

Loyal leadership like these may only arise from a nation faithful to its own truth, arrayed in time as an undertaking of Country at one with its own mission and at peace with its own vision.

Therefore, I pray - first and foremost - for our nation: May we now become what we've always dreamed of becoming... mabuhay!

This is my new year hope. God bless the Philippines!

---<--@

Salutation #78

Typhoon Sendong is portentous.

It was not only out of season -

it is an indication of a much larger change.

No words can convey my distress at the loss we have sustained

at the passing of this most recent typhoon...

These are ours, O my Philippines, these are ours...

Arise therefore, O my nation - serve -

and pray for the victims of Typhoon Sendong!

(Hidden in Plain Sight)

Each year,

my fellow Filipinos,

our Country is tested

and the endurance of our nation

stectched to a point...

We are -

by the natural cycles of the seasons

and the excesses that the forces of nature

- earth, wind, fire, and water -

a nation yearly inflicted

with much violence

upon our communities

by the evils that arise from

these natural calamities.

But never have we thought,

O my beloved people,

never have we even begun to consider,

the slightest hint of surrender

to the limiting and random nature

of these evils!

Rather,

these typhoons

only serve to strengthen

our resolve

- no matter the pain -

to stand together

as one people.

For in the midst of these trials

we always choose to be the victors

and we always have.

Do you understand this?

We are -

a people whose virtues

have always been - as such -

hidden in plain sight.

So let us bear

- into mind and heart -

the strength and reality of

our own native resilience

as well as bring into the fore

of our social consciousness

- these present days -

the excellence of the virtues

embodied by our national identity

which are all the things that make living

the Filipino Dream worthwhile

as well as possible.

For the greater cycle of the seasons

is shifting -

These shall be times

- unprecedented -

in the history of all the nations

of the children of Mankind.

Winter indeed in coming

(after the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden)

- here in this season of shadows -

and there is a testing ahead

that shall require all our virtue

(as individuals giving freely

and as nations dreaming together

as one family).

Therefore,

let us always have meaningful recourse

to the sacred remembrances

of God and of Country.

- selah -

Our unity as a people

shall be our greatest guarantee against calamity.

Our peace as a nation

shall be our safest shelter against the darkness.

Our vision as a Country

shall be our surest way ahead

out of this long night - this longest night -

and into that new morning of Promise

for our Land of Promise.

2011 have revealed to us our weaknesses.

2012 shall temper for us our strengths.

---<--@

Let us help our brothers and sisters in Northern Mindanao -

Contact -

Tel. (632) 931 - 8101 to 07

Click -

http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate

20111003

The Last Quarter of 2011

We have now reached the last quarter of 2011. Let's start with a little review.

At the very beginning of this year, we set out in this blog what is to be expected of the year 2011.

I made it clear to each of us that 2011 is a time set aside for preparation and that 2011 is going to be a year of remembering what it really means to be the nation in ourselves; a year of choices.

Truly, we are the nation in ourselves - the love in our hearts for God and Country makes our one Republic undertaking visible to the eye of the spirit. It places us on the map so far as the Angels of the LORD are concerned.

It makes us easier to find in the darkness.

- selah -

I want you to recall all of the lessons we have learned so far...

Love creates the conditions for peace and our peace is a love of common good will. For the peace we profess as a nation is an affinity to unity and the highest unity of all is the unity of the LORD.

Therefore, the peace of the Philippines is a peace that must ascend being a peace that is beyond our understanding. What is meant by this is that our belonging is a unity that obtains to all of creation and more.

It is a religious peace. It is an economic peace. It is a political peace. It is a cultural peace. It is a social peace. It is a generational peace. It is a human peace.

It is the peace we offer to each other as citizens.

It is also the peace we offer to others like ourselves as a nation of citizens.

And all of these things repel the beast of War for all of these things draw us close to the memory of our people. It brings us near to the LORD, our King, Who remembers us first. Light attracts light. Love attracts love. Truth cleaves unto truth. Abundance creating abundance.

War can not understand Peace and so this peace professed is the end of the spirit of division.

This is what I mean by completing our remembrances.

All these things must begin with peace in the Filipino heart - your heart, my fellow Filipino compatriots, and mine. This one heart makes us children of the Promise.

It binds us to the dawning of our Land of Promise.

For the War in heaven is in the heart. And as War found no place in heaven, it certainly has no place among the nations. For the earth is not the abode of War: Peace is the responsibility of all.

I am telling you this because by 2012 there shall be many more crisis and conflicts that shall take on the outward appearance of anything but the central proposition being made to us by the Providence of God under this season of heaven: That (1) the problems Mankind currently face is a problem of the human heart and that (2) all of these crises and divisions find their root in the spirit.

God is making a call for the exiles to return.

If we do not heed the call of these present days, we shall certainly lose our way and our nations shall plunge deeper into the embrace of War. For how long shall our generations linger in darkness and in division, I can not tell you. For I do not know.

All I know is that if it took 2000 years for us to arrive at this choice for peace, how much longer will it take for us to listen to the LORD?

Nay, my brothers and sisters of the Promise.

We must shine in the Night as one whole sky.

- selah -

Remember this now, Beloved of God, for the time shall come when you shall seek to understand these things:

These are all external manifestations of a spiritual requirement...

...and that the answers to these questions are within ourselves.

For the core issue of 2012 phenomenon is the peace of the human heart.

---<--@

An Application of the Heart -

Having said all of the above, I take it these two previous facebook postings of mine will wax all the more clearer to us today.

The first one concerns the national peace:

"Never take your focus off the peace process, do not delude yourself in thinking that war and poverty is the reason we stand together as one nation.

Peace is the reason we are Filipino. It is the purpose for which Providence brought us forth through our parents into this time and place.

If we fail to believe it now, how then shall this generation be remembered?

But if we succeed in turning the tide today, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, how many generations shall tell of this gift when indeed, peace is at the beginning and peace is at the end of the long march of our nations?

We only have to choose and choose absolutely."

- selah -

And the second one concerns the regional/continental peace:

"This Spratly Issue could become a thing of War or a thing of Peace; a thing of War if we miss the bigger picture and a thing of Peace if we succeed in grasping it."

- selah -

Let us try to pray and reflect about these things.

Also, let us try to validate in ourselves this week the fact that all our nations, being born of the one lineage of victory, also subscribe to a common wisdom and this is the wisdom of peace.

I am not aiming for all to be convinced. I am aiming only for each of you who are called by God to be convinced to be convinced. God be with us all.

---<--@

One who understands War understands Peace.

---<--@

We will stand with each other. We will stand with our friends.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Revelation 12: 7-9

20110615

Second Half of 2011

We are now into the second half of 2011, my honorable compatriots.

Peace, I think we are doing well.

Everywhere around us things are changing but the secret to all this change is how we hold on to the changeless in ourselves. We need to return to first principles and build from those truths about ourselves that are immutable.

Only then, when we are come into the nation in ourselves, can we emerge into our truest potential as a Republic whole.

The LORD, our God, is upon His Throne in Eternity, my people - all is well!

Because God is in His heaven, my nation, peace shall reign in the heart of Man, good will shall prevail between all men and women of peace, and the order of the nations of Mankind shall persevere.

Do not be distressed therefore, about the darkness.

Indeed, there shall be confusion and perhaps we shall find ourselves in the thick of it more and more by and by at the approach of 2012. But understand now at the second half of 2011 that it is all a necessary passage.

Say to thy heart, "everywhere around me things are changing, alleluia."

For darkness is but darkness that does not lead to the light.

If today we have come to understand as we should, the changeless and the timeless in ourselves and in others like ourselves, we should by now have gained for each of ourselves, by grace of God, a special kind of appreciation of what beauty there is in our common humanity.

We would have fallen in love with the dawn, my honorable compatriots.

And this vision shall see us through the long night - as citizens to each other and as a nation among nations.

---<--@

Salutation #14

(Canticle of Praise)

Bless Your Name, O LORD!
From the highest of Angels

to the very least of us Men!

Bless Your Name, O LORD!

All creatures great and small -
let all of Your creation sing!

Bless Your Name, O LORD!

May Your praises be heard
from the fiery depths of hell,
across all the lands of earth,
far into the heavens above!

Our voices proclaim Your glory!
Alleluia! Amen to God!

AMEN!

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! Long may our remembrance serve us. God bless us all.

Of Virtue and Vice

20110430

Salutation #8

(Awakening)

I shall speak plainly -

we are a nation emerging,

a Republic awakening to itself!

So awaken, O Filipino soul -

return to a knowledge of yourself,

O my honorable compatriots, peace.

There will be a time

for building our material prosperity

but that time is not yet come.

I shall speak plainly -

we are a nation emerging,

a Republic awakening to itself!

Once we have emerged

we shall know how to build.

Only then shall we build.

Today, we shall remember.

---<--@

A little note:

Globalization is dangerous unless the world shifts from a mixture of Emerging and Developed Countries into a mixture of Developing and Mature Countries.

This may only be achieved in a climate of peace.

Of the Ages of Country, the transition from Emerging to Developing is an internal shift which though different in character is not unlike the transition from Developed to Mature.

When we will have completed this shift by 2012, my honorable compatriots, we will have completed our remembrances as a nation.

What proceeds is vigorous national development through to 2045.

Do not be overly anxious or perplexed by wars or rumors of wars, or of earthquakes, or of the general atmosphere of our world approaching 2012. What really matters is what we are to do with our time today - together.

The things concerning the end of time as we know it or the Last Day (General Judgment) shall indeed be fulfilled. But it is the LORD, our God, alone Who knows the hour of the fulfillment (to our vigilance belong the discernment of the season).

Our work as individuals apart and as individual nations together is to always be ready for the time of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and so our greatest security against the uncertainties we shall be facing in the near future is the knowledge that we are indeed doing this necessary work of humble preparation not just as human individuals but also as human nations.

For this is the labor required of us, nothing more, nothing less.

Now, my friends, we will do this vital work in a season of peace.

That season is today.

So let us do all that is humanly possible for us, my fellow Filipino compatriots, bearing in mind and heart that God will fill what is impossible for us to do.

Peace to all our nations and good will to all men and women of peace.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Healing Work

20110103

2011



2011 is the year before 2012. This year is going to be a defining year in the life of our nation. It is a year of choices. It is a year of much work, within as well as without.

I am letting you know all this at the very beginning of this year, my fellow Filipino compatriots, so that we may all know in our heart of hearts by the end of this year how blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD: Mapalad ang Bayan na ang Diyos ay ang Panginoon.

God has remembered us, O my nation!

Therefore, our hearts stir for a remembrance of Him and of each other in Him. God loves us and we are come to a knowledge of love. Therefore, if we love the LORD, for He is but one God alone, we shall work for peace in our hearts, in our lives, in our communities, and in our world.

It all begins here in the You and I.

Verily, we can not share with other nations, either through word or deed, what we ourselves do not possess as a nation.

If we truly love those other kindred nations, we must achieve peace for ourselves first. So let us work to dispel all forms of prejudices and misconceptions about us and learn to re-discover once more what is right about ourselves - together this time.

If we are to be able to look out to their suffering peoples with much truthfulness and meritorious compassion, then we must learn to understand how to break the rule of war in our own hearts first.

Therefore, we must come to a knowledge of peace that we may by our willingness be as a light to other nations; the light that God would have all nations to be for each other.



Indeed, we must complete our remembrances by the end of this year*. Our focus, being citizens of the one Republic of the Philippines, shall be the peace here in our own nation AND the peace in the Middle East. And I enjoin all citizens of all other nations who are likewise inclined to focus on their own peace processes AND the peace in the Middle East.

Therefore, my fellow Filipino compatriots, let us put peace - rightly understood - at the forefront of our national awareness. Let us make this year THE year for peace. And let us follow through our convictions with concrete moral and civic action.

Lastly, let us fear inaction and complacency. For we can not choose to remain lukewarm. Nor can we stay in the deepening darkness of these midnight times.

Let us engage the darkness; put out into the deep.

The time for peace is now. Today is the favorable season.

This is our time.
---<--@

The Question -

An angel asked me, "...and what do I love, O heart?" For I longed to know.

It led me to a shop and showed me a thing I desired for myself but could not yet afford. Something I knew I knew but did not really think about that much.

"I love all these things that you love, O heart, that leads you to be good", the angel said to me.

"I love all the good clothes that was made for you, I love the cell phone that you'd so wished for so much, oh and that laptop - I love that as well - for you, O heart."

"So how do you love me in return?" The angel's question seem to echo from deep into my being for the lesson has now penetrated me indelibly right into my heart.

There was silence:

"You shall love the LORD thy God as one LORD alone".

"Make peace with the all of creation. Divide it not. Say peace to the river, to the sky, to the earth, to the animals (and the trees) of the earth and the fishes of the seas, to thy nations good will and to all thy fellow human beings, life and abundance. Do this if you love me."
---<--@

Towards the morn, O ye nations,
towards that awakening dawn!
Towards the peace, O ye peoples,
towards the twilight of the new!
Towards the LORD, O ye numberless stars,
towards that promise made of old!
Towards the Light, all ye living lights
away from the darkness,
where all our roads,
lead back to you, Jerusalem.

A blessed and meaningful 2011 to all. May this year bring forth the blessings of peace to our nation and prosperity to our families.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.


Revelation 12: 7-9

Salutation to the Holy Angels

I salute all the angels of God!
From the least to the greatest -
I salute all the angels of God!
From the highest of Seraphim
to the guardians of the souls of men.
I acknowledge your unseen presence
with due respect to the unseen reality
that hold back the assault of demons
in our poor world and in my poor life.

I salute all the angels of God!
To the angels of my enemies,
to the angels of my friends,
as well as those of my family,
above all to my guardian dear,
my own angel, faithful and true -
who have known me from eternity;
who came to this world at my birth;
who shall fly me away at my passing.
May God's grace see us through evil
with bonds strong against temptation.
May God bless and purify our friendship
into an union of love that will last forever.

I give thanks and adoration to God
For all the angelic hosts of the LORD.
For the battles they fight
and the victory they proclaim
under the banner of the Lamb,
the leadership of Michael,
and the Queenship of Mary,
by the power of God,
on behalf of suffering mankind.

To the most high and sovereign God
who rules all true things
seen and unseen
and turns all things to good
for those who love and fear Him
may glory, honor and praise belong
forever and ever.

AMEN.

*the time for the completion of our remembrances is till the close of 2012. To be honest with you, I deliberately made it early here to make sure we make it on time - 20110723.