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.
---<--@

GunSMART: An Able Steward

Every Gun Safe and Gun Mature Citizen
understands the implicit spirit in - and - the explicit intention for
- the Second Amendment - as intended by General George Washington
being a natural Provision in the Freedom of the new American Nation
to be invoked in Liberty - as necessary for the Security of a Free State -
and through her constant Illumination - forever purposed - and proceeded -
across all generations to the last - by the duty of the Common Defense.

And in that same Faith - decisively undertook -
in God - and - in the Providence of God in Country,
thou - should now undertake to cross the same Delaware
with Washington - in thy own spirit - to train to become
after that last cold and bitter Wintering at Valley Forge
- a constant and Able Steward of the Gun.

 Every
GunSMART
Citizen - is a -

S - Safe
M - Mature
A - Able
R - Responsible
T - Trustworthy

Steward of the Gun.
---<--@

3. An Able Steward
is Safe, Mature, and quite Proficient
- in the keeping and the use of the Gun -
Fully understanding of the Power of the Gun.

That the Power of the Gun - is to kill -
and that this is a Power - utterly without recall,
without remorse to Life, without prejudice to Liberty.

The Vision of the Gun Able Citizen

is of one secure in a knowledge of the truth 

that the Power of the Gun is - never its Virtue.

So that an Able Steward,
in order to rightly Respect - the Power of the Gun
obtains for him or herself, an understanding of its Virtue.

That the Power of the Gun - is distinct from its Virtue;
that this Virtue is - Valor - and - Valor which is
the greatest expression of all Martial Virtue
and the order - and - purpose by which
all Martial Virtue must forever
distinguish themselves
from all Virtue.

For one is a fool who knows not
how to rightly respect - the Power of the Gun -
who in never seeking the truth of its Virtue and of its Liberty
can not be defended by its Power.

And another such a one
so taken by the Power of the Gun
who submits one's soul to the Allure of Arms
in the seeking to serve and to worship its Power
becomes a lowlier fool, who exceeding not the Ignorance
of the first fool - but transcends it - so infinitely so - that
he proceeds with great evil - and does great harm.

For those who serve the Sword
never serve the Sword by their Ignorance.

For
- as in the first fool -
the Ignorant
when Danger is near
may hearken to the Wisdom that arouses
their spirit to waken from the slumber of the dust.

But
- as in the second -
those who have become
by their own free submission
- evil-inspired -
are those who fear
no other ruin
more than the ruin that Wisdom herself
may call down upon their heads,
who have made a choice 
to remain unmoved.

Truly, the Sword of the Nations know of each of them
who - of its own truth - became intimate with them
only by their own Ignorance and Malice -
to their great and terrible regret.

For the Sword
that must fight against
each our own Ignorance of the Sword
- in Truth -
is the Sword that must likewise stand
against each our own Betrayal of the Sword
- in Justice -
before the LORD and before All
the Nations before God - is -
that selfsame Sword of the Nations.

And so
- they who become evil-inspired
by the Allure of their own arms
shall - against the Admonition of All
in Heaven and on the Earth -
forever know of a willful deliberation
(and the Despoliation of the Sword in them
come never by any accident of nature).

Thus,
during a time of greatest need
their own Nations shall forsake them
(and burden of their own Arms

shall work to crush them).

So that
even as their own swords are failing them,

their evil works shall die with them.

For verily, this is true -
by Providence and Gospel admonition:
all who serve the sword
shall die by the sword.

An Able Steward
does not - and - never will serve
the base nature of any Nation's Arms.

And because of it - not in spite of it -

proceeds in Confidence of his Freedom,
and through it obtains to a Maturity of its Virtue -
in Liberty, bearing its Burden firmly in the Right.

That the Virtue of Arms
wields the Power of the Gun -

for the Power of the Gun is to kill

but the Virtue of Arms is Valor
and preserves the soul 
against War.

Valor is Virtue - brightest against War,
as a Spear - set against the ensuing Darkness,
constantly aflame - with a Sacred Remembrance -
All that - in Light - must arise to lead Virtue into Battle,
commanding as Charity commands, is Valor ascending
to realize itself - in all Martial Virtue - for God and Country
in each Person of the Soldier - unto Victory - and unto Peace.

One then proceeds - to learn
of the Proficiency and the Skill
specific to each particular weaponry
seeking to Master its every utility
without ever succumbing
to the Allure of Arms.

And that the Nation is to be defended 

not by the sheer might of its Arms
but by the Virtue of its Arms -
as a Gun Able Citizen.

---<--@

*At the conclusion of this series,
I shall post a simplified version of GunSMART
and the GunSMART oath.



To my beloved nieces 
- Aleksis, Clara and Leila -
and their common generations
utterly deserving of safer schools,
saner communities, and abler mentors -
upon a brighter world, under nobler skies.

Farewell to Promise

Truly, your individual remembrances make you a human being and your national remembrances make you a citizen. Therefore, know ye in the end that all national remembrances are human remembrances; that every nation's hurt are always ultimately a hurt that arises from the human condition.

When you pass the line of your own remembrance - from past to present - and complete the necessary labor of your spirit... you should, in deepening your memory of all of these things, be carrying in your will of human citizenship - more love, more hope, and more faith in our common humanity and in the labor of our family of nations*... not less.

(*to build up the Inhabited Earth and fill our world with a myriad living lights)

Certainly you are going in the wrong direction (retrograding) if your remembrance causes you to forget all these things and instead, embrace the easy power of hatred (and become by evil inspired).

This is not remembrance but the corruption of it.

The way of remembrance returns us back to our nation's lineages of victory and is proof against the spirit of war - the way of return guarded by the Angel at the East Gate of Eden (Gen. 3:24).

Will those souls who - from all ages and from all our nations - have suffered death from the spirit of war and hatred in the past cry out to our God for more war and hatred?

There is no other kind of suffering but the human kind and we do not remember to forget.

The past will not penalize us for not confronting it, the future will.
---<--@

September is peace month... may we deepen in the spirit of our peace!

Starshine, peace is not the mere absence of war 

just as Cherubs are not those fluffy, little, baby angels 

sitting dreamily on lazy, white clouds... 

For peace is a mighty presence - 

'tis in all that is worth keeping and defending 

born of every love worth living and dying for... 

'tis the presence of a spirit that is unafraid

to force to bless, transform, and fulfill
as truth to overcome the world -
in spite of the presence war.

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.
---<--@

I. The Naming

The First language knew no words -
it came winged, freely to the heart
and spoke as Motion, and was truth;
understood in action, known to All.

To Old Defiant, an ode -



O Islands,
Who art Thou
but thy own Name!

Who art Thou
but that - the Name
within thy name.

For if Thine own Heart
is within each thine own heart -
Then Thou art a Spirit at-One with Thyself
and a Nation at-Peace among thy peoples!

Therefore -

Must it matter to Thee,
what vanity Thou art called
by a world that knows thee not?

Must it matter to Thee,
what fleeting judgments it spake
than the Truth that ever burns
brightly in Thy bosom?

- selah -

Thou art a Nation
born among the Nations
(of the children of Mankind)
descended from the inaugural lineage
of the Sons of the Holy Patriarch Noah
and so Thine too is the everlasting Covenant
which preserveth the life of the Inhabited Earth.

For Thou art a Nation
among a Family of Nations
each of us distinct yet all the same,
together commissioned by the LORD
at the East Gate of fallen and faded Eden
and together endowed by our God with
each our own purposes and times.

As a Tree among many trees
grown under heaven upon the earth,
We are arisen to bless this barren world
in behalf of the children of Mankind
for the forbearance of Memory,
the Life of the generations,
and the sustenance of
All living souls!

What must matter to Thee - is -
what must matter to the life and the labor
of our Nationhood and not what vanity there is!

For every tree is known by its fruit.

Thou art humanity with belonging.
Thou art sufficiency through reliance.
Thou art harmony and togetherness.

And Peace is Thy common Salutation.

Bravery and Faithfulness
are thy most ancient of names.
---<--@

The Bow of the Infinite

Cowardly the heart
who longs not for remembrance -
whose soul have abandoned the hunger,
whose spirit have forsaken the thirst,
whose unfulfilled fire desires completeness no longer
and thus, forgot why it is a heart.

So be brave, O heart,
and in thy loneliness know
that thou wert made for Love to love -
thy constant longing, returning again and again

to the Seeker in thy dream, the unimaginable Beauty,

to the Seeker in thy dream - until -
in all thy coming and going,
thou findest in thou, a vision of thee -
asleep in the wilderness - and in thy awakening,
and in thy awakening, O my heart,
after all thy days are finally forever spent
blessing the earth with thy solitude,
awakening Home.



Listen, Starshine -

Those who do not remember the past - repeat it.
Those who do not respect the present - regret it.
Those who have no regard for the future - relinquish it.



Remembrance is a learning of the hope of communities past,
that it may lend its constant strength to the momentum of communities present,
so that all human community may gain a knowledge of each other
and find peace with one another, nation awakening nation -
peace which leads to an understanding of better days
and opens for all mankind, for the glory of God,
the way of our future.

A (labor of) country without a past is a nation without a present
and a nation without a present is a people without a future.

Draw back, feel the strength. 
Live it, accepting tension. 
Then trust, let fly.

---<--@

The Bitter Fruit



Woe to those who live in days without acceptance,
who dwells not in the Now of this present time,
dark shall be their sojourn upon the earth and their skies listless and without season,
trouble and mischief shall as twins dwell in their company as their brethren
they who rejoice only in seeing evil days and who number their days in the dust,
those who disdain the light and find no relief in the goodness of the LORD
who without gratitude rejoice not in their God and trample His creation underfoot
they who through the hardness of their hearts live yet are not alive,
and reject the common communities of the nations of Man,
for the knowledge of life itself shall utterly desert them,
all they whom wisdom hath spurned for hating the truth which is her voice
and shall partake forever of the fruit of their desolation.

Peace is Present

These times when we do not know who or what is trying to prevent us from becoming, let them be - what is important is that we know where we are going, that we have a path and a vision:

So with all these things happening right now, let me get us back to the foundation of why peace is key -



Do you know why I am so concerned about the peace process? 

Firstly, because Peace happens in the Now: 

Peace is Present. You must always remember this -

It is never a thing that was nor can it be a thing that shall be - if not for today. 

We, as one nation, really have to get interested in it. We have to want it enough to seek it and we have 2000 years worth of information in our history with all nations to process this truth.

This is why, as individual citizens, we have to work hard to bring our remembrances forward into our hearts - here and now. 

We have to pray for it and work for it - in whatever way we can, large or small, known or unknown, utilizing the freedom of whatever gift or vocation we have received - in whatever state of life we have chosen before the LORD, our God. 

We have to want it enough to seek it.

For if peace is not in our minds here and now, we shall never obtain it from the God Who Is, the LORD, For He is God. That is my first point - complacency is deadly. 

Especially in this new age of spirit and thought.

Secondly, because in 20 or so years if we do not make ourselves better for our being united and focused as a nation, if we do not as one Republic obtain together the peace which is our shelter - there is a great probability that we shall never recover. The hardships and the darkness we see and know here and now will thus become permanent.

Let me not dictate it to you now: You only have to look at the world around us to validate this for yourself.

And if this happens, not only do we lose our potential as a nation, for which we are each accountable for - all our other kindred nations will also forever lose what good we Filipinos have to give to our world so much in need of it - and this place of earth will wane all the more darker for our not wanting the light.

And we will all answer to God at during Judgment Day for our lack of appreciation for the gift and the grace of nationhood. 

Our citizenship with each other might be something we undervalue in this materialistic times, undervalue so much that we may often times underestimate the truth of its excellence and worth.

It is a real treasure in these ever-changing times.

Did one think we were come to this life without rhyme nor reason? If so, perhaps one did also likewise think that the nations of our world exist only to thirst for their own destruction? 

No, you are not - and no, we are not - to everything there is a time and a season under heaven: For God is in heaven and the Throne of the LORD in Eternity - all will be well, all will be well.

So let us reflect and let us pray about our commitment to God and to each other that we may with much patience and hope succeed - against all adversity - in the common task before our hearts and our hands of building a better place in time for us and for our generations to the last of our generations - mabuhay!

"Public's participation is vital in the peace process as peace agreements are going to need the work of many people and not just the OPAPP alone." - Sec. Ging Deles
---<--@

Kanlungan

Nakalilito man
at madilim ang mundo,
mga kapatid ko sa Pangako,
huwag tayong mabahala
at huwag mawalan ng loob -
huwag matakot sa gabi!

Pananalig sa Diyos,
kapayapaan sa ating bansa;
kagandahang loob sa bawa't isa
bunga nang pagkakapatirang
namumuhay sa ating diwa,
at pagmamahal natin sa ating
nag-iisang sambayanang Pilipinas -
ito ang lagi nating maaasahan;
ang ating kanlungan sa gabi
at daan tungo sa umaga.

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."
---<--@

An Angel Weeping

The greatest trick the Devil ever played is the trick that the Devil never was; that evil and the corruption of sin, though it dwells as an infirmity in the hearts of the children of Mankind, is never a disease encouraged by him nor he and his angels therefore, accountable for their thievery and murder before God.



I SAW
in my heart of hearts
an angel weeping,
saddened but not bowed,
shedding holy tears,
shed for Love.

"O hellfire!",
said the presence
within the comforting silence
of our hearts' mingling,
"The greatest abomination
is not thy existence!"

"I weep not
for thy blasphemy
and the abominations
that you relentlessly hurl
in the face of my Creator."

"I weep
with tears
that is shed
like the rain
filling the rivers
that flow in time
from the golden deep
of the Eternity of my LORD."

"I weep
because I am wounded
but not by thy evil
O reprobate sink
of wasted creation."

"I weep
not because of thee
O hellfire
for I am hurt not
by the bankrupt nature
of the Devil and his demons
and the reprobate men
who condemn themselves
by their unwavering
and immovable
allegiance
to the everlasting death
that was decreed
from Eternity."

"I weep
because of Love
knowing the unbearable hurt
of the terrible affliction
that thy rebellion
have inevitably caused
the most beneficent nature
of my most loving and most merciful
one LORD and only Creator."

"O hellfire,
thy existence
is a curse,
right by Justice,
but a transgression
against the infinite
dignity of Love!"

"I weep
because I am hurt
but not by thee,
O hellfire,
I am sorrowful
not for thy eternal woe
and the crushing depths
of the gravity of thy fiery defeat;
not for thy reprobate evil
do I shed these tears."

"I weep
because I am hurt
and I am hurt
because my God is hurt,
my LORD and my only Creator."

"I weep
with all the love
that longs for Itself
and I shall weep
profusely
in great torrents
like the rain
to fill the rivers
that flow in time
into you, O nations,
into you, O my beloved,
into those new seasons of life
that advance the cause
of suffering Mankind
and serve my one LORD
being like unto my God,
extending the glorious will
of my divine Sovereign
until my only Creator,
most forgiving
and with kindness
unsurpassed
wipes away the tears
at the springtime beginning
of all things new."

"And thou
O hellfire
and all thy
countless
abominations
that fight against
the rivers that flow
becomes to me
a forsaken season
shed like these tears
and overwhelmed like the darkness,
at the final winter of my memory,
and the daybreak of the everlasting peace."

"Alleluia, glory to our Creator,
holy, holy, holy is our one Sovereign,
alleluia to the LORD!
Beloved to God are those that weep
and labor in their hope,
dwelling always in good will
and believing with conviction of faith
that all will be well,
all will be well, peace,
amen, alleluia."
---<--@

(produced 20081024)


Sun and Rain

On Remembrance

Remembrance
is a commandment of God
of all human nations.

Hence,
a lack of remembrance
breeds a certain contempt
of the sacred.

Either one draws away from the sacred,
placing it in a place - out of reach of the heart.

Or one becomes enraged by it,
making of it an enemy of the heart.

- selah -

A person who looks for God
who has not the remembrance of God in the heart
looks for Him in vain.

He or she may seek God
in the heavens or on the earth
and God shall nowhere be found
for that person.

The great scandal of this is
that this person may claim that God is not -
where in fact, he or she has closed the eye of the heart
to the Presence of the LORD in all things,
seen and unseen.

The remembrance of our war dead
(across our nations, civilian and military)
likewise belong to the realm of the sacred.

(For as the sacred fulfills all - and - draws all,
so must the quality of our timeless remembrance be
for all national remembrances are human remembrances
and rightfully belong to the common memory
of the spirit of our humanity.)

- selah -

In an increasingly materialistic society,
where God is being everywhere forgot,
- a healthy regard for the sacred -
soon becomes an uncommon virtue.

What lies beyond the veil of time,
where all unity must always proceed
(for it is in the spirit where all unity is begun),
in unseen realms beyond the nature and scope
of the physical and the temporal,
is where a healthy sense of sacred remembrance
grounds the human heart.

Where remembrance
is increasingly becoming scarce,
there shall in its place be a growing lack
of a sense of connection with history
and with each other.

For
all truly human relationships
are spiritual connections.
---<--@

(produced 20110710)

Salutation #159

The maturity of our peace, the strength of our nationhood, and the prosperity of our people, spiritual as well as material, determines the age of our Republic.

How we get there is a matter of the heart.



(International Day of Peace 2012)

Personal -

Peace is a quality in the spirit,
a sense of wholeness and belonging
that is independent of the brokenness and suffering
of the external world.

Simultaneously,
peace inspires in the soul
a genuine and unshakable love
of this inward sense of wholeness and belonging
as well as the total freedom to overcome
brokenness and suffering in one's self
and in others like the self.

It is that most fundamental human longing
to return to a condition of perfect safety and perfect rest;
a condition unto which we all, as human beings,
desire to ultimately return unto throughout our lives
and is at the heart of all human community.

It is neither a perfect freedom nor a perfect peace
but peace, where it is present, brings forth only peace.
---<--@

National -

Can you overcome the earth by yourself?

Can we hope to subdue the darkness of the unknown earth as individuals?

Can we hope to deter the violence and the chaos that dwells within the darkness by the law of family or tribe alone? Can either family or tribe defeat the ancient curse of War without being utterly consumed by it?

Can the imperative of the LORD to tame the unknown earth be done in the spirit of division? Can the inhabited earth ever be built with War in the heart?

Can the brightness of its vision for all Mankind be achieved - here - in the visible realms of the universe, by the spirit and the labors of Man, through the grace of God and the freedom of heaven, without the necessity of the nations?

What for are we?

We have a responsibility in these present days to remember... the craft of all nations is peace!

Lest we forget. Lest we forget.
---<--@

In every conflict, every nation that fights ultimately fights for every nation that fights because in the end, War is the ultimate enemy of all our nations.

Let us together reflect on this with retrospective clarity secure upon the vantage our generations now possess over the last great age of war.

The nobility of our arms determines its strength and not the other way around.

For violence hath no memory of itself because it is dead, only virtue lives and lives eternal.

Peace without arms - in an imperfect world - is improbable, without remembrance, impossible.

September 21 is the International Day of Peace.

Salutation #155

(Master of the Harvest)

God
asks us
for a harvest of virtue

Then
we blame each other

Then
we ask God why 
our world is so troublesome...

When
God asks
- our nations -
for a harvest of virtue,
we should work together
to produce the appropriate yield...

Only then
shall our troubles wane.
---<--@

Salutation #139

(Helping Hands)

My brother and sister Filipinos -

A nation who
has no remembrance of its own past
is like a man who
have lost the use of his legs.

A nation who
has no love of its own present
is like a man who
have lost the use of his heart.

A nation who
has no vision of its own future
is like a man who
have lost the use of his mind.

If we are this nation, 
what for are our hands?

What for are our hands, my people?

- selah -

What for the memory but the light?
What for the light but the life?
What for the life but the hope?
What for the hope but the love?
What for the love but the labor?
What for the labor but the peace?
What for the peace but the LORD?

And what for the LORD, our King,
but the victory of all these good things,
alleluia to God on high, my people! 

What for our independence if not our freedom?
What for our freedom if not our peace?
What for our peace if not each other?

What for are our hands, my people?

- selah -

Who has given us our nationhood but God?

Alleluia to God on high, my people!

Did any of us choose to be born with such a soul?

Who can take this spirit in our hearts away?

Alas! Only we, my people, you or I -
by our unremembrance, by our impenitence,
by our unpeaceful, and false ways.

So let us, as the stars,
in this time before the dawn,
awaken Now.
---<--@

20110701

Patriotic Grace

Several days ago, I picked up "Patriotic Grace" by Peggy Noonan.

I got it at the bargain pile just right outside of National Bookstore at a local mall and was really happy about myself for finding it. You see, I identify with things like these - in some strange but real sense, I feel what the author is saying, I really do.

Now that I am almost done with her book (thank you so much, Peggy Noonan), I am finding that many of the things I have been quietly thinking about seem to be the very things that common people in America have also been thinking about - all this time.

Something that when I really sit down and think about seem strange to me. But I am so used to strange nowadays that this all seems to me as something not out of the ordinary.

So I bless the LORD, and praise His Name.

Salutation #25

(Equanimity and the Longest Night)

Peace be with you, Starshine.

You must get used to strange events

without thinking you are something else

but you and you alone.

Because these are extraordinary times indeed,

and we as ordinary people must live through these times

with the kind of grace necessary for us to remain ourselves

- just ourselves -

nothing more, nothing less.

For God is at work shaping our history with us, right now.

- selah -

The first half of the 21st century is the Longest Night.

From 2000-2045, especially after 2012,

everyday for us is going to be like D-Day at the beaches -

It is going to be difficult, I promise you.

But if you love God and Country - you will fight this fight.

The battleground is the soul of every nation.

For the War in Heaven is in the Heart.

I want you to understand - even as we go along -

that the Passage in Daniel 12 specifically speaks of this time -

that this is OUR time, dear starshine.

At no time do the stars shine all the more brighter,

at no time do their starlight cut all the more sharper

than the deepest of nights

and we are at a turning point, Beloved of God,

for here in our needful world, it is Midnight.

But in your heart of hearts, starshine,

when you know what it is

and who you it is that you love

- the utter simplicity and completeness of it all -

your heart of hearts

being that space within your soul

that you share with God and God alone,

it shall always be clear as Day for you.

For when God is on His Throne in Eternity,

the night shall yield for you

- its own opportunities -

even as the darkness shall as the tide

recede for you, our most precious starshine,

to give you room enough to build a life

worthy of your labors in the nation.

Cross the Minimum of the Times

by individually completing your remembrances.

Make peace with all you know and must hold dear -

individuals, their communities, and above all, other nations.

Unify your heart of peace, Beloved of God,

carry forward with you into these present times

every hope of times past

- as much as you can and as far as you can -

for it is through these hopes that the generations of the past

shall bless our present labors with their peace

and this will add power and momentum to our will

to see to it that the labor of these present times

is advanced down the line of our lives

from hope to hope and strength to strength

as a labor of completion in our nations.

Never allow yourself to be by evil inspired.

(I am now speaking here in particular with the USA -)

Our common battle

is the battle to unite the heart of Country

and to reclaim the mission of the Republic.

It is a fight to rebuild peace and reclaim good will,

within as well as without.

It is the labor of every human heart

invested by the LORD God

in both our undertakings of Country

as citizens to each other.

(But in particular of my generation

as well as of that generation after mine -

in behalf of all the generations of life.)

It is the daily fight to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, provide for,

employ, serve, nurture, protect and prosper our common people,

and to enable them to empower the Responsible State

to guide the course of both our nations toward God and destiny.

This is our fight, our longest night.

---<--@

We all are part of the strength that will deliver this world to promise. Or doom it by our own ill will for other people and other nations.

---<--@

Let us make this Country of ours work not by being better (or think that we are better) than other Countries but by being better than our own worst selves.

For it is only by besting the false image of ourselves that we shall truly succeed.

---<--@

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."

---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! May God bless all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

The Longest Night

Revelation 12: 7-9

20110630

The Calm in the Storm

Everything that is happening around us - especially the Spratly issue - is like a vicious typhoon.

You know as well as I do, my fellow Filipino compatriots, that each of us must find that calm in the storm to make sure that we are no longer part of the problem but part of the solution.

When everybody is railing around you in anger about China's aggressiveness, you can not stir in the spirit of that same stirring - you must find the center in the storm.

You know how strong these typhoons get. It is quite easy to be swept away by its howling winds. This is precisely what it does when we act out rashly, judge things with finality, believe falsely or too easily.

Or it may bring to us, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, so great an inundation that the crash of all these realities might unleash currents strong and swift enough to drive us all into inaction or worse, despair.

But if we hold on to the beliefs in our hearts, and if we practice these convictions in everyday life - we shall be secure in the storm.

If each of us makes a conscious effort to make these truths about ourselves as a nation stand out in our awareness strongly enough through daily practice that they form good, strong civic habits in ourselves as citizens to each other - we shall be secure in the storm indeed.

Because no matter how the Spratly issue plays itself out - the reality of it all is that what really, really, matters is how we react to it as a nation.

Defense is a reaction - absolutely speaking.

Therefore, we can not stir with the stirring of the outside world. We can not let external forces dictate our own internal desire for peace amongst ourselves and amongst other nations at any and at all costs.

I tell you now, the best adaptation in these uncertain times is unity and the more timeless the truths invested in this sense of unity, the better we shall be able to withstand those forces of division that seek to tear all nations apart.

Not the Chinese, not any other nation on earth can reach out to God for our own sense of national unity and belonging than we, the Filipino people.

And in a typhoon - let us always remember - a house divided will not last.

Therefore, when you hear those many voices railing against sides to this dispute (voices who do not even have the courage to own up to the perspectives they like to spout) go ahead and listen but always make sure you have presence enough in yourself to be able to make your own considerations about the matter as soundly and as closely to the one heart in each thy selves that you can get or ask those who you know and whose counsel you can trust.

Do not be so easily swayed or unhinged by opinion polls, popular clamor, or any extemporaneous outpourings of sentiments from faceless crowds but rather, always try to have one for yourself and always be open and honest enough to test the strength of your own opinions against these external forces.

Be committed to the truth and not to false pride.

Do not hold on to the darkness that must sink into the void at the passing of every moment lest it carry you down to your grave.

Ascend with the ascent of all true things to the unity of God, the LORD of All.

Represent the national good will in these times but especially in sundry times - in and amidst our national communities and among our kindred nations.

Do good things that are unknown and without fanfare. Love the act of doing good, yea - love the act itself - appreciate deeply in your heart what you receive by your giving away.

Preserve the national good will in sundry times but especially in times of adversity.

Especially, do not creates sides within our Republic whole that may not exist and discriminate against our own citizens of Chinese descent or any other citizen that does not appear common to you because not one of us has the right to do so who belong to this nation - citizenship is a call made by God and not by people (or by angels for that matter).

It is a particular bent in the human soul - a grace no human eye can see but is all too commonly felt in those whose hearts have awakened to their patriotic calling.

It is a splendor we witness by the beauty of those lives we as citizens desire to commonly imitate in our nation's heroes and in the heroes of all nations.

Above all, know and understand that this grace is made to dwell in the hearts of all citizens from every nation - that you may better identify with them in their humanity and better understand also that constant call for good will among our nations that despite the ferocity of our recent past is now being reiterated under this season of Peace, by the one Sovereign of all nations no less.

Let us pray for an equitable solution to the Spratly dispute.

And let us continue to be vigilant and deeply committed to the cause of peace in our nation, in our region, in our continent, and in our world so needful of the responsible and decisive exercise of our most basic of citizenships simply as human beings, one to another.

---<--@

The Angel of the Nations

All the Holy Angels of the LORD serve God and God alone.

Now, the Angel of the Nations beholds the face of the LORD, constantly giving worship to God.

Therefore, when the angel of the nations faces its own nation, it provides light to the generations of its people who in turn accept it.

Its sword is then turned away from its own nation in its defense.

When the people reject the peace of this unifying light, the face of the angel is turned away.

And the sword of the angel is then turned toward its own nation to fight against the darkness that keep it from its own remembrances.

As nations, we can only really either surrender to the peace of our belongings together or fight against the angel that guards the memory of our people from the darkness of War.

Remember this - nationhood is a spiritual endowment. It is therefore, a truth in the heart. You can not see it - it is not just a face, not just a sound, or anything purely material - it is wrought through a particular kind of grace, of peace and the love of the same (good will).

It is a labor, a mission, a vision and a destiny.

You feel it in your being, you know it in your heart because it is an unseen reality that calls out to you and all of your peers in the nation that you may be gathered into your own true belongings in time.

It is your gift of nationhood that fosters you according to the peace of your own citizenship - one to another - as a human being among human beings and as a nation among a family of nations.

It is not a work of War.

---<--@

If you still want to know the name of the Angel of the Philippines, it is this - "Go and be a good citizen".

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas at lahat ng mga bansa ng ating sangkatauhan! May God bless us and all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

To close, let me (and my Miyang) share this with you -

Country is a Verb

Blindness