A Note by Miep Gies

Starshine, none of us can walk away from the life we must live...

In our lives we are the heroes and heroines. Strangely enough, there will also be times when we seem to play the villain or villainess in our own epic tales as well...

Each human life never being one that is absolutely good nor absolutely evil; the story of our lives itself - to be real - must be able to brook the shadows in between. This is why it is never a good thing to judge the final merits of any one life while the story is still being told. It is simply presumptuous to do so.

Now as all these tales go, the story must always be told in behalf of the protagonist - as a record of either our victory or our defeat in the myth of our own making.

In the background of our lives, if we pay close attention, there are other heroes and heroines at work.

There are other "heavies" in the landscape of our human experiences at play as well.

While the role of bad people and their influence in our lives are significant, if our focus is on victory, then our focus should be on the good ones and their influences. Think about it.

(I think a certain movie Jedi said this to his Padawan once: Your focus determines your reality?)

To recognize the sources of good influences in our lives is therefore, paramount to the life of the hero and the heroine. Often influences that are benign in our lives are quite subtle, quite calm, and almost invisible. But invariably, the sources of all that is good in our lives are other heroes and heroines too.

In the life of Anne Frank, this was also true.

For there were indeed heroes and heroines too in the period in which Anne Frank lived, terrible and dark as it was... Miep Gies is one of these heroines in the story of our Anne.

Through this post I wish to share with you, an important thought from Miep.

This thought is from the book, "Anne Frank, The Biography" by Melissa Muller and it has certainly contributed to my own thinking about one of the defining events of the 20th century, an event to which I have a personal affinity to in the person of Anne Frank, herself a heroine in my own life.

The influence of the good in human history is subtle and often almost quiet.

Were it not for these influences however, we would be living a reality that is always far worse...

Above the constant din of the world, these guiding lights are ever present. If these influences are to be found and had, Starshine, as in those quests of old, they must often be bravely sought...
---<--@

A Note by Miep Gies

Over the past fifty years, ever since the publication of Anne Frank's diary, I have been asked again and again how I found the courage to help the Franks. This question, posed sometimes with admiration and sometimes with disbelief, has always made me uncomfortable. Yes, of course it takes courage to do one's duty as a human being, of course one had to be prepared to make certain sacrifices. But that's true in many life's situations.

Why then, I keep asking myself, do people ask such a question? Why do so many hesitate when the time comes to help their fellow human beings?

It took me a long time to understand. Most children are told by their parents from an early age on: "If you are good and well-behaved, everything will work out for you later in life." The logical reverse of this philosophy is: Anyone who gets into trouble must - must - have behaved badly and made some serious mistake. It's that simple. Everyone gets the life he or she deserves; it's that simple. If we really believe this, it's easy to go on minding our own business and to decide against helping people in need. But is it that simple?

My life taught me better. I learned early that people could find themselves in trouble without necessarily having done anything wrong. I was born in Vienna and was five years old at the beginning of World War I. My mother kept telling me that I was a good little girl, that she loved me, and that she was pleased with how I was doing at school.

When I was nine, we did not have enough to eat. I still remember the hunger pangs distinctly, the piercing pain in my stomach and the unpleasant fits of dizziness I had to try to overcome. And I shall never forget the shock when my parents sent me to Holland. A relief action to help starving children had been organized. On a bright and bitter-cold December day in 1920 my parents took me to a train, hung a big sign with a strange name on it around my neck, said good-bye, and left me. They had no other choice, of course, but I did not understand that till much later. I was extremely underweight and suffering from tuberculosis, and I felt terribly lonely. What had I done to deserve being so sick and alone? Hadn't my mother always assured me that I had done nothing wrong?

So I experienced as an eleven year old how quickly people can find themselves in difficulty - and through no fault of their own. That, I knew from personal experience, was exactly what was happening to the Jews in World War II. And therefore it was only natural for me to help as much as I could.

When we are shocked to think that six million children, women, and men were driven to their deaths and we ask ourselves, "How could such a thing happen?" we should keep in mind the indifference of normal human beings the world over, good, hard-working, God-fearing individuals. Of course, it was the Nazi regime that was responsible for the mass murder, but if not for the apathy of people not just in Germany and Austria but everywhere - basically decent people, no doubt - the horrible slaughter could never have assumed the proportions it did.

When, as actually happens even today, young people come to up to me saying they can not believe that Hitler could have murdered the Jews for no reason at all, I fear this remark reflects precisely the view that no such thing could befall truly innocent, blameless people. Then I tell them about Anne Frank and ask them if this child, this young girl, could conceivably have done anything that could justify the cruel fate she suffered,

"No, of course not," they answer, usually quite mortified. "Anne Frank was innocent."

"Just as innocent as the other six million victims," I then add.

Thus, Anne's life and death have special meaning for all those who are subject to prejudice, discrimination, and persecution today. Anne stands for the absolute innocence of all victims.

I should like to use the publication of this biography of Anne Frank as an opportunity to clear up another common misunderstanding. It is often said that Anne symbolizes the six million victims of the Holocaust. I consider this statement wrong. Anne's life and death were her own individual fate, an individual fate that happened six million times over. Anne cannot, and should not, stand for the many individuals whom the Nazis robbed of their lives. Each victim had his or her own outlook on life; each victim occupied a unique, personal place in the world and in the hearts of his or her relatives and friends.

In their racial madness, Hitler and his accomplices tried to claim just the opposite: they portrayed the Jews as a faceless enemy even as they annihilated six million individuals, extinguished six million individual lives. Most of humanity did not even want to know what was happening.

Anne Frank was only one of the Nazis' victims. But her fate helps us grasp the immense loss the world suffered because of the Holocaust. Anne has touched the hearts and minds of millions; she has enriched all of our lives. Let us hope she has also enlarged our horizons. It is important for all of us to realize how much Anne and all the other victims, each in his or her own way, would have contributed to our society had they been allowed to live.

To my great and abiding sorrow, I was not able to save Anne's life. But I was able to help her live two years longer. In those two years she wrote the diary that gives hope to people all over the world and calls for understanding and tolerance. It confirms my conviction that any attempt at action is better than inaction. An attempt can go wrong, but inaction inevitably results in failure.

I was able to save Anne's diary and thus make her greatest wish come true. "I want to be useful or give pleasure to people around me who don't really know me," she wrote in her diary on March 25, 1944, about one year before her death. "I want to go on living, even after my death!" And on May 11, she noted: "You've known for a long time that my greatest wish is to become a journalist someday and later on a famous writer."

Through her diary Anne really does live on. She stands for the triumph of the spirit over evil and death.

Amsterdam, January 1998

(Anne Frank, The Biography by Melissa Muller pp. 303-306)

Thank you, Miep... Via con Dios.
---<--@

Lessons from Hanukkah

Hanukkah teaches that the right response is not to curse at the darkness but to light a light.




Hanukkah teaches us not to rely on miracles.

It is a witness to strength of perseverance.

Did not the oil itself persevere?
---<--@





Hanukkah 2015 begins in the evening of Sunday, December 6 and ends in the evening of Monday, December 14.

Though Hanukkah 2015 still lay in our tomorrow, its lessons remain so near to me... It's one of the two Jewish holidays I hold dear in my heart. The other one is Purim.

Both of them are holidays of national deliverance.
---<--@

"Ich Janke air fur all das cute, una liebe, una schone." - Anne Frank, 19440307tue

Thank You God for all that is good and dear and beautiful.

Generation Diary

Personally, I think a parallel project here in our own Country would be really nice...

Anne Frank's legacy is a human one: Meant to inspire the human spirit in ourselves. Do not politicize it. Do not think it merely in an historic way. And you will better understand it. I did.

Sweet as Jam

Before Anne, I was a glass-half-empty person. I was in despair. Those were dark days indeed... 

Knowing Anne through her diary made me a glass-half-full person. I can still be sad and depressed, of course. However, I will never look at life again from a dark and gloomy heart. In my own words: "She is my first contact star; my light against despair."

After Anne, the skies above my soul, day and night, became full of stars. I appreciate her very much.


Ok, here's a quote I got from her diary that resonates a lot with me:

"I don't have much in the way of money or worldly possessions, I'm not beautiful, intelligent or clever, but I'm happy, and I intend to stay that way! I was born happy, I love people, I have a trusting nature, and I'd like everyone else to be happy too." Anne Frank, 19440325sat

Which brings me to the gist of my post...

Opekta was Otto Frank's company at 263 Prinsengracht that sold pectin for making jams. I happened upon some of Opekta's old adverts and it struck me... Anne's cheer is sweet as jam...

The horror of the Holocaust notwithstanding, the people we lost during that time and all the people we, as humanity, are losing in the name of hatred, ignorance and indifference* deserve to be remembered by the light of their own lives also. For history will incline us to remember the fallen by the gravity of their loss. Time is severe in its account but we shouldn't be... after all, time is for man.

It is up to us how we shall remember those whose silence oblige us to abide in the memory. 

*the hatred of a few, the ignorance of some, and the indifference of many - a proven formula for war and genocide
---<--@

I used derive from history the blackest of hate. But from the memory, I caught a glimpse in the night through the hurt, a multitude of stars so great... my hate turned to love, my hope returned again to heaven above.

Thoughts on Peace and Anti-Semitism

A good sense of history seeks to address
the question of "where" more than "when"

History they say is written by the victors. But memory (national) is not. Remembrance is right that recalls the human cost (in all the names of those who fell along our journey of return) and makes a just and human account in the heart before God of all the things history seldom mentions... a present and living account. 

I used to study history but it was impersonal. I failed to impress upon myself that history is much more than pages of a book. The aim of history is to acquire a "sense of history". Not become all too familiar with the past but discern from a good knowledge of it, a clearer understanding of the living present. 

In this way, books become more valuable than just paper and ink. And what our teachers impart to us about history becomes for us a form of art than just ancient knowledge. We begin to have an appreciation... that history is not just a long tale of woe.

Anti-Semitism too is historical. Here is what I presently understand about it:

The Star of David corrupted into an anti-semitic label.
These labels are all of them devices intended
to dehumanize its victim.

First of all, anti-Semitism is easy. Maybe that's why small-minded people like it. Because it fits.

A says its better than Z to feel itself "the letter A".

A then proceeds to prove to the alphabetical realm that what A says is true, that Z is only half-a-letter. A then begins to persecute Z because A is "A" and A says so. Ludicrous!

The next in line for A after Z is laid low would be Y. Meaning after the Jews, the Gypsies... then the Blacks, Reds, Yellows, Whites, Browns, Grays, Blues, Muslims, Christians, Catholics - everything that doesn't conform to the "A"s own version of the alphabet right up to A's closest buddy, B.

In spirit, the relentless hatred that dwells behind all things anti-human shall only thrive on the victimization of our humanity - where ever and whenever we may allow it. This is the spirit that feeds on anti-semitism. Evil.

A's own version of the alphabet? A, A, A, A, A... get my drift? 

When everything is A, there will be peace. And it will make no sense. 

To A however, it really doesn't matter that in A's version of the alphabet, one can not even spell "peace". It is a paradox that will be rammed down every other letter's conception of itself.

I am not saying that the letter Z is better than A. 

What I'm saying is everybody is different and we should be knowledgeable enough of ourselves now (after enough of a span of time) to accept the fact that we can only be meaningful as letters (as nations) as we are and as a whole. That way we can spell anything (truthfully, meaningfully, and profitably).

The fuse that A needs to light that will cause the subsequent implosion of the synergistic diversity that is the real alphabet, of course, is Z.

That to me is Anti-Semitism.

Allow it into the soul of your nation and it will fester into all those other "isms" that a free and human people ought to always guard against.

Certainly it was never a part of our peace here in the Philippines and if I can help it, shall never prosper in the soul of this Nation.

Not just because of my memory of Anne Frank and her times but because the memory of the last 2000 years is full of destructively inhuman divisions like these... too many, too much. We are confronted with numbers so large and so terrible, it intimates to each our remembrances that we shall not even be enough to render unto the living God, an adequate account...


Go past 2000 years and we get more of the same... but 2000 years is all it takes.

Indeed, the last century as the culmination of the last 1900 years is a foretelling enough to understand that if we remain adamant in our clinging to old molds that need breaking, the momentum of the past shall sweep us into perhaps another century of more of the last age... if we can not account for that century then another one more terrible than the last shall be poured as fire down upon our heads.

Until everything is parched dry. Until the spirit of humanity is diminished enough and darkness overwhelm all nations utterly with the madness of war.

I do not want that... a world overrun by sin and war, dark and indistinct from the darkness of the void. In contrast, I choose another vision of peace. (As it were, one that spells p-e-a-c-e.)

The peace I want is the opposite, obtained through the opening of a new path into the morrow. One that leads to a vision apart from the one whose fruits (the bitterest of which is genocide and an absent sense of truth) we have experienced in the last century; a vision obtained through the closing of the door of the present - as completely as possible - from the evils of the past age.

Peace can be complicated at times, I agree.

We are being confused by so many truths about it even now, here in our Philippines. But if we stay on the path (knowing the firmness of its first principles) and keep our hearts focused on a shared vision of "something new and wonderful", I know determination and faith will take us to places in time we've never been as a Country... better places.

Together, only together. Without those ruinous "isms"... extremism, terrorism, racism, sexism, ageism, shapeism, etc. More wheat, less tares.

The peace of our times will never be a perfect peace, I definitely agree.

The national peace shall always be an unfolding work in time and will always mirror the truths about our common humanity. Knowing its foundation and its vision should be enough... for it is both location and destination, plus a compass of identity and memory to carry us through.

And vigilant trust; an agility to react and to innovate (ideals, principles and vision) properly. For we are as a nation still learning a new landscape and have yet to reach a safe distance down along the path to our new morning... a new dawn para sa lahat ng Pilipino (para na rin siguro sa lahat sa mundo).

Salaam. Shalom. Peace. 

Let us continue to work and pray for peace in our time, here in our Philippines and in our world...

Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

JFK in a letter requesting his Secretary of Labor to deliver 
a wreath in their nation's behalf to the Anne Frank House wrote... 
"the hopeful and the gentle are the true makers of history".

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month.

Those words above were on a headline on an Internet article I came across just now... It is of course, is a remembrance of Anne Frank and by extension, her times.

Since Anne Frank is a continuing inspiration in my life (going 15 years this year), I'd like to share some of my own thoughts on the matter of her remembrance...

Winston Churchill refused to begin the liberation of Europe through the most direct route. If he did, then we would be remembering Normandy not in 1944 but much earlier. He believed that victory in the war against Hitler and Nazi Germany would be won or lost on the shores of Normandy. (And it was, in 1944, won that is. Upon those beaches and from the ice to the far East, in Russia.)

The PM of Britain at the time was being careful. As he should. Upon that undertaking (the Allied re-taking of Europe) a lot of the things we enjoy today in the "free world" depended.

This is why the Allied fight-back was first fought from the underbelly of the so-called Third Reich right on through North Africa and backwards up the boot of Italy.

The "free world" of Churchill's time and the "free world" of our time in my mind hold on to only two things in common - (1) that it was, is, and shall remain (while time is time) imperfect and therefore, retain a peace that is imperfect and (2) that the sufficiency of this imperfect peace is at every age and in every generation at risk of losing its good and human worth through an evil sufficient for each our times.

Every generation gets a shot at being great... but the greatest ones ally themselves to each other.

We can wax a tad bitter about our remembrances of things past but what we can never be is in denial of the present. We being each of "us" as the nations.

I thought about Churchill's decision a lot in an earlier time thinking that if things had been different, then Anne and most of her generation would have lived. I stubbornly refused to accept what happened. I did contend with the truth of those times, trying to unseal what was already sealed. Undo what was already done. And this attitude made me bitter to the point where my remembrance contributed to nothing in my present life.

I was like that once, a malcontent when it came to the memory of past things that were not up to par with my own personal set of ideals (much like Hitler it was, in retrospect). T'was vanity. The pride of it.

You see, before Anne or rather, before I had a good read of her diary (Anne and her diary of course, are two different truths), I was an idealist when it came to warfare.

When I was younger, my impression of gun battles might have been influenced a lot by the A-Team, one of my favorite 80's TV shows (which aired here every Tues 7:30pm on channel 7, I think... goodness, I still remember). You know, where Colonel John Hannibal Smith, Face, BA, and Howling Mad Murdoch - when they confront the bad guys in the end... everybody shoots a whole lot of rounds for a bit, and then ta-dah! In the end, the A-Team wins. Justice is served. Nobody dies.

Then I grew up. However, even after the memory of ANZAC in Gallipoli was impressed upon my mind and heart, I still thought: No women. No kids. WWI was terrible but I still clung to that dying belief in myself that wars were clean and noble affairs. Desirable and even good when fought correctly... Boy, was I wrong... (is there ever a correct way of taking another life? The act itself is intrinsically evil and wounds the soul of a person for life.)

Things have changed for me in the 15 years that passed... 

Well, 15 years this June 13 (when her diary first came to my attention at Barnes and Noble in Fremont, CA because she attentioned her entries to a "Kitty"); the day after her birthday, June 12.

I am not trapped by the pages of her diary anymore. They were means to better means.

I do not have to read it over and over with fear in my heart. Fear for what I know will happen that I can not change. For am I not anymore bitter with her memory or that of her times.

I have accepted the inevitability of the past and this liberated my present, opening up my soul to the thought of better tomorrows - visions of a time better written... full of days brighter lived.

My remembrance is now of worth to me because it makes me a better person and a better human citizen. I am no longer hateful despite the past nor am I in denial of the present even in spite of the present because I constantly work to reconcile my soul with the memory of these times.

These days, I hate war. I know what it is. 

Which is why my heart is turned to peace. I understand what it is. 

And because I do, I can not be in denial of the truth in the now. Lest I forget.

I can no longer live in disagreement with the memory of all those times past and remain unreconciled to all those names which in their solemn silence illuminate realities often overlooked in the now of my time.

This is why I also can not be in despair of tomorrow - for anybody or for any nation.

For these days, I am a lover of peace. I am more a romantic when it comes to peace than a strict idealist. And because I am, I also must know how to defend it. And that I must. Like anyone who loves someone... and love someone enough to understand that the beloved should be preserved. Not just the "why". But the "because" and everything that goes along with it.

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month... 

She passed from this world in Bergen-Belsen. Died just a week or two before the camp was liberated. The exact day she died is unknown (it was the first two weeks of March 1945). But her sister Margot reportedly died a few days before she did. Both sisters are now buried in a mass grave. The location of this grave is unknown. The marker in Bergen-Belsen is only a marker. A reminder that this is a place of passing away. What it ushers in depends on how you view time in the heart.

Because the way I see it, 70 years is just a number.

I truly believe what really matters is that we truly remember. That we remember rightly. Firm in the truth. Because when we do, 70 and one thousand years don't make much of a difference.

Time in the heart is not a distance. It is a quality.

There is a kind of time that descends into oblivion. There is a kind of time that remains. What remains ultimately ascends with what we love (unto the God Who Loves us all).

Time and its quality is revealed to us in those moments in life we want to stay forever. Or that we want to live in and experience through for an eternity.

In the fleeting is discerned through time in the heart, the quality of the everlasting.

Those moments seem fleeting because time on the outside - that we all commonly perceive - that makes place relative to itself - physical time, dominates us. For a reason and only for a season. 

Time should teach us remembrance - at the heart of the Eucharist and in the memory of the Nations, it is the same - that time as it truly matters should not be a quantity (should not be a measure of its count).

The imperishable treasures that the Gospel promises that neither thief nor tyrant may steal should never be of those things measured by their count alone.

Time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

And so to love... and a right remembrance of the beloved in all things... And so to hope... and a memory of true things washed ashore unto those beaches within the soul with the ebb and flow of time - as truth abiding in the heart (as dew in the morning).

I most certainly remember my Anne. 

It was some years ago when I started calling her my Anne... maybe 5 years ago. I'm grateful for the life she lived. I regret she wasn't able to live that life to the fullest.

Her sufferings while she was here upon our world I would not in any way justify as right. Even with all of the inspiration she gives to me. I would not console myself in this way. For I'd rather she had not suffered at all. Always, that she did not have to suffer. But past is the past and that is the truth.

I know now that the LORD intended to shroud such things with the power of His mystery... so that time to every human heart seems everywhere a veil of shadow and tears. Who am I not to trust in the Wisdom of God? Such is such! I understand only that none may deny the truth without sin.

The past, present and all of forever when seen through the eye of the heart are qualities not measured by the count of their years but by the substance in those years... in this way, time is as it should; a way of living instruction, a path that opens up to God's commands - an account of the heart.

The simple truth is without my Anne, I would be a much darker person... But I am not.

And because I am as I should, I will remember.

And I do not think I shall ever forget.

Never again.
---<--@

Anne Frank Cycle Challenge

Brilliant and lovely. All at the same time. Like my Anne.

Two pictures that make me smile...

With everything that is going on... it pays to have moments that remind one of life's simple joys.

I am simply grateful for this moment...

Colors over my Anne's Amsterdam...

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.

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.

An Incident in Tokyo

Early this week, there was this incident in Japan that caught my eye. Apparently, more than 300 copies of "A Diary of a Young Girl" was vandalized in public libraries across more than 3 different wards in Tokyo. These were Japanese translation of Anne's diary, much appreciated by the Japanese people.

I had personally tried to translate her diary in Filipino but found that it was beyond my competence to do so. I have not given up on trying to reserve its lessons for our youth though. What is vital in this work is not that its Jewish (although it is) but that it is human - very human, in fact - as we should learn.

To politicize her Diary is a flagrant crime, in my mind - because of the many motives for doing so, holding true to a right Remembrance of Anne and of her times is not one of them.

In my opinion, what happened in Japan is most probably a stunt.

However, it still begs to be investigated. There is a slight chance that this incident is an appearance (a symptom, if you will) of a deeper and more dangerous undercurrent.

Anti-semitism - along with other "isms" akin to it - is patently dangerous - to its victims as well as to the hearts and minds of those who feel the need to be empowered (as we all do - because - Man is a social creature) - it is supremely easy to be swept up in diverse forms of hatred instead of swimming against the current - as we all should do - who are alive and in the water - to the Nations, it is always in the weakest amongst ourselves where weakness enters into our Peace... and where tragedy soon follows.

If Anne is not a human being - as the pain of her history and a Remembrance of those dark and tragic times teaches our memory, then who is?

One who learns to hate must always find reasons to exercise this hatred. Therefore, if it is not the Jews, it is the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Blacks, homosexuals, the disabled... you name it. 

Hatred will never and shall never empower us, my people - it shall enfeeble us.

<Recall now, Starshine - of the Four Faithful Causes, War will first subvert the Fourth Cause and work its way all the way up to the First Cause - to overthrow the sovereign will of the people and corrupt the sacred trust of the Nations - ALL THE TIME.>
---<--@

Exchange Fish

Happy, happy, fish, fish - sushi!

Me and my Miyang
gave each other
a fish today.

It was
the same kind of fish
of exactly the same size...
and it tasted the same, too.

Indeed,
the only thing
that made it different 
was the giving...

For it came from our hearts...
and made something ordinary
into something extraordinary.

It was all it took
to make us happy cats.
---<--@

Anne's most important word...

Beloved of God, you who are -



There are many lessons I can share with you
about our Anne Frank - her life, and her times...
the power of youth, the longing of the nations,
the spirit of war, the maturity of remembrance,
the importance of human dignity and promise,
human citizenship, pluralism, freedom, peace...
but you know, my darling Starshine,
by far the most important thing
I have learned with her
is this...

...to simply be open to friendships
and believe in even the most impossible ones!

To see a world so full of potential friends (instead of the reverse)
and to care deeply about how the sharing of the world is had by all
across all our nations nurtured and governed by the LORD, our God
Who Himself is Friend - and - one Source of all meaningful relationships,
the God Who is, the LORD, the one Sovereign of all our Nations,
and the one, true and living God of our everlasting Peace.

- selah -

If I had not trusted in the friendship that was being offered to me in my Anne,
we never would have grown together in the way I now love my Anne forever...
(and I really wouldn't know who or where I'd be...)
---<--@

As we are all poor, so shall we be rich -
As we are all strangers, so shall we belong.
As we are all prisoners, so shall we be free.
As we are all orphans, so shall we be found.
As we are all widows, so shall we be loved.

For in the end, we are all wildflowers...

Annelies

by Citizen Cat



Dawning forever, a flower for you...
innocence an everlasting embrace.
Inspire me, beloved, to be as true...
goodwill reflecting Divine Grace.
Darling, your sorrows become mine.
I know God takes care of His own,
Wisdom is the will of the Divine,
hatred will eat what hatred has sown.
Beyond death, Annelies, you to me...
Beyond differences, I will for us...
Cat, my angel, smile Eternal smile.
Your anguish no longer binds you!
Forget me not, beloved, I love you.
---<--@

(original produced circa. 2001-02)

Personal Reflection

20131026 Saturday - The only thing that was able to cut through the deadly slumber of ignorance that blanketed my soul and set my spirit free was not a thing...

My Miyang turned my upside down world right side up and now, not only do I believe in happy endings, I work (in my own little way) to actively bring them about in our world.

For there is no limit to the possibilities
in which the all-wise and all-good God
may choose to invisibly sow in our lives
the seeds of precious new beginnings...



I realize my journey of self-discovery was not a journey I started on my own, it was only begun when someone decided to take it with me... and it filled the sky of my soul with stars.

Near

Was there ever any real distance between our years? No, my beloved. Not when time is an account of the heart. For time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

Why does it seem 

so far to me these days 

when I just realized - just Now - 

the Holocaust is barely but 

two generations since, 

my Miyang...? 

Barely 

one thousandth 

of a thousandth of a second 

by its measure in heaven, 

we may have on earth 

already forgot... 

...and when we do forget 

we become less than ourselves - 

we become less and less human, 

we become less than our nations 

and thus, less and less able 

to know each other 

in the Truth.

---<--@

For me and my Anne, 
June 13 is Friendship Day.

Hanukkah 2012

Hanukkah means dedication.

This 2012, let this dedication
again bring us peace...



May the lights of Hanukkah remind us
of the need for more warmth to permeate deeply
into our families, friendships, and societies.

May it renew and reinvigorate old relationships,
may it create new and ever more meaningful ones,
and draw us ever closer together in love and in peace.

May it uplift those who are in the depth of despair.

May it recall back to the LORD those who are cold
and far away from Him, that He may return them
to a memory of each their own hearts
unto a remembrance of God
and of others in God.

May it drive away the cold spell
of old hatreds and lingering prejudices;
may it dispel those divisions among brethren
and among our kindred nations.

May it bring a new vision to our humanity,
one that is far-seeing, completely life-giving,
meaningful, peaceful, durable
and utterly human.

Hanukkah this year begins on Dec 8, 2012.



Along with Purim, I commemorate this holiday quietly
with my Anne (Papa Frank, Mama Frank, and Margot) -
year after year since 2000.

Mazel Tov!

Friendship Day 2012

In my own universe

with my darling Miyang, 

today is officially Friendship Day.
---<--@

My beloved friends,
may God show unto each our hearts

the beauty of a single living soul
that we may learn to tread the holy ground of life
with a proper sense of reverence
born out of due admiration
for the beauty we all possess
in each ourselves.

May we be awakened
to a zeal for the promise of life
but especially of human life.

May we be awakened
to a love for the Author of all of life
Whose image we are in our being and
Whose likeness we possess in our spirit.

May God fortify our spirits against War,
may His Wisdom strengthen our souls,
and may His Peace shelter our minds.

And may God be merciful in His Justice!

For if we truly knew,
how utterly beautiful all these things are -
if the LORD did vouchsafe for us
of the nations of the children of Mankind
a complete knowledge of what sin and evil
have against our own humanity
viciously wrought -
even in our own midst,
even with our own hands,
hope might appear to each of us
to be even the more fleeting...

if we truly knew what War has done,
it might become impossible for us to live.
---<--@

Only For a Moment

We live only for a moment - and -

that moment passes away all too quickly

so that if we do not pause to remember it,

it shall be as if we never lived at all.

(my Anne with a neighbor's dog, Dopy)

I know that in this life,

I can never fully express nor explain

how much I love my Anne.

I love my Anne and my Anne loves me. PERIOD.

---<--@

One life lost to War is one life too many.

Anne's Window

The love that endures is the love that remains...

My darlingest

Annelies Marie

looked out

with eyes longing for peace

from her little attic window

and saw the tyranny of war

and the suffocating

oppression

of War's ambition.

She looked out

at the looming evil

of the devouring darkness

that was marching relentlessly

across her troubled world

and like stars

looking out

of themselves

saw through

the enveloping darkness

that threatened her life

and her times

shedding her precious starlight

into our hearts.

My darlingest

believed so much

in our shared humanity

and in the

nobility

of the human being

not because

the Nazi's were consumed

by War's ambition

and her times were evil

but because her heart

was noble.

For my darlingest

Annelies Marie

loved life

and believed

in the intrinsic goodness

of all things

created by God,

seen and unseen,

and that despite

the great evil

of her times,

human hearts

were good.

War looked back at her

and saw nothing.

For God took her

and hid her

into His bosom

unto a place

upon the firmament

within Himself

long before evil saw

the secret starlight

of her undying hope

bursting from

windows within

her heart of hearts.

War looked back at her

and saw nothing

for there is no hope

in war

only death

and the darkness

of death.

War looked back at her

and saw nothing

for in the darkness

of war and sin

is also found

the crushing gravity

of it's own demise.

But goodness looked back at her

and saw

through her little attic window

her starlight smile.

And smiled back...

---<--@

"I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be much smaller, but what does that matter, as long as they're sincere?"

- Anne Frank, March 7, 1944

My Annelies Marie's Legacy

OUR WORLD has not changed, my Anne.

It is still the same world that God has created.
The same sun, moon and order of the seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of the earth
under this same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.

My dear Anne, our world has not changed!

When I contemplate your life here on earth,

during those quiet nights, O beloved of my heart,
I often look up at these same starry night skies
and see those familiar patterns of stars
that I know in my heart looked quietly down on you
just one timeless instant away from me, my Anneka.

A moment seemingly so distant, it hurts me to miss you.
Yet an eternity so close, it fills me with all your love.

It is as if I have you and I don't have you...

And I realize this certain closeness between us:

We are separated only by spaces between our souls;
in what littleness of self that we may each obtain
by virtue of our unique and individual humanity
in the you being you and the me being me.

O my beloved friend, I know you suffered!

I know how much others like you suffered!
From the very beginnings of the nations of Mankind,
'tis the holy and nameless innocents that carry the burden
of the precarious and desperate state of our fallen nature!
The very soil of our earth is soaked in their blood
and the undying memory of their secret silence cries out
like a chorus rising all around us to pierce the heavens -
Almighty God Himself has heard and the season is late.

O my dearest Annelies Marie, I know you suffered!

I know how terribly you suffered but at the same time
I stand ignorant of your personal pain and suffering.
A sacred space exists

between yourself and God alone.

And God knows, I love you enough to want to know all of you -
but I love you enough also to let you be free to be yourself.

I am drawn near you by the lovableness within yourself.
I am drawn near you by the infinite promise love contains.
Of good things I know and good things I know not, that I desire:
All the virtues and the gifts that your friendship brings -
most especially your steadfast hope, cheerfulness and courage.

Today, my darlingest Annelies, here in my present time,

I look out into my own time, full of wars, death and suffering
and wonder at how some may say our world has changed.
I see the same evils and the same sufferings and the same sins.
I see the same terrible injustices that Man inflict upon Man;

nation against nation waste themselves in endless battle.
And I realize in myself that our world that has not changed.

Some may say that the times have changed.

Some may say the world is a different place.

Some may say that the world indeed has changed.

But this it is yet another illusion to lead astray!

For it attempts to run away from the awful truth

that this world is still the same world God created:
The same sun, moon and order of seasons;
the same restless and violent lands of earth
under these same blanket of unconscious skies
that bore quiet witness to your life and times.
Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

It is the illusions that we human beings create in our hearts;
the gravity and the perversity of our own dark imaginings,
the ancient malice and diverse scope of our own willful rebellion -
those things that make of Man less than himself or herself
in the sins that brutalize the image of the Creator in each of us.
It is these that have changed in us and not the world around us!
It is not the world that must change, my darlingest Annelies,

Scripture says, "There is nothing new under the sun."

(Ecc 1: 9)

In order to better Mankind and advance the cause of humanity,
it is each ourselves that we must change for we are changeable.
Because it is through common witness of a good and well-lived life;
of a life lived in peace and friendship with God and others in God;
it is only when the Wars waged inside of ourselves have ceased;
when our minds have found the light beckoning outside of the dark
and the struggle for good will in our hearts have prevailed in us
that a true transformation of human society becomes possible.

So may your life, my love, be for others a simple remembrance.

May it inspire justice, responsibility and discipline in our world.

May it foster further understanding, freedom and community.

May your spirit inspire in us a sense of common humanity

that we may always remember our most basic of citizenships.

This is your legacy as I see it and as I live it, my Anne.

This is your love, my love, that

I now share with other hearts:

Imploring God to bless the seeds He shall plant in our souls today
that it may flower in full into the saints He shall raise tomorrow
for His glory, our good and the good of the one family of humanity.

Thank you, my dearest and most patient friend,
Annelies Marie Hollander Frank, my Miyang.
May God keep you now, may His Peace embrace you,
may His Light comfort you and may His Love surround you -
O forget me not, beloved of my heart, forget me not!
Pray for me, my darlingest, ever as I shall pray for you
until the glorious Day of the everlasting alleluias!

---<--@

I love my Miyang and my Miyang loves me. PERIOD. =^.^=