Keep Calm, Carry On

Wansapanataym something sweet... o di ba?

Kim Chiu, you make me smile. Thank you.

What do you think?

An lovely interpretive painting of peace

What is beautiful about peace... the picture above or the one below?

Iraqi Christian kids displaced and disenfranchised by ISIS receiving the help and attention they need and deserve

Personal Reflection:

Peace is one large vision as in the painting. This is true. In that vision, the beauty of peace appears abstract to the seeking soul. This view of peace is depicted by and in the picture above.

Peace here, in the larger view of our world, is like our Lord Jesus looking over Jerusalem from a distance.

But that vision is made up of many smaller, equally important visions. These smaller visions encapsulate many smaller acts... each act is significant and vital to the synergy of the whole.

Peace here, from the view of the poor of our earth, is in the Gospels seen through the many small acts within our Savior's ministry. The beauty of one such act is depicted by and in the picture below.

Such is peace, I think. 

Overall, it is something that can never be won by sheer force of arms. It must be loved. It must be gained by love. To be loved it must first be understood. To be understood it must first be sought. To be sought it must first be desired. To be desired it must first be missed... do we miss it enough these days?

How long till we realize how ugly and how adulterous war is? 

How long till we love again our true love as nations?
---<--@

Extraordinary Universes

As children,
we used to carry with us
our own universes.

We carried them openly,
our eyes so full of wonder.

We understood it,
and believed completely
in its mystery.

Remember the questions we used to ask?

Then
as the outside years found us,
we slowly grew out of it.

As the sheer weight
of time in the world descended upon our youth,
the ordinary universe outside of ourselves
merged with our own.

Slowly but surely,
the everyday world we must know
became opened and plain to our sight.

For good or ill.

Even now however, a part of us still believe...

In each of us truly is hidden,
the seeds of extraordinary, new worlds.

---<--@

Personal Reflection

After I saw the Crystal Blue Sphere, it took me a while to eventually understand its finer details. What the lights were... Why the sphere was blue...

These realizations came to me in time. Usually, when I needed them. I saw how beautiful human life can be, especially when we come together in the peace of our living communities.

We are stars, constellations and galaxies together.

Each of us carry within ourselves the seeds of new universes.

When we were children, each of us carried this universe around with us all the time. It surrounded our souls with such wonder that the questions we asked in our youth were usually the most courageous questions we may ask in our lifetimes here on earth.

When we lose our sense of youth, we also lose that certain sense of wonder. Now, as regards this on-board, internal sense of wonder - physical aging affects it not.

We only become hardened to the spiritual realities within us when we allow the calm of that shining vision to be defeated by the deafening crash of exile time.

We become dark and aloof to everything wonderful and bright that can be in ourselves only when we allow what is ageless in ourselves to become eclipsed by its darkness.

For as we mature upon this world, we become more and more engaged in its external realities and the living universes within our souls slowly merge with the physical one - the one destined to die.

We forget.

We forget what is really beautiful is within, that each of us were born with it, and that to honor true beauty is to honor the LORD Who made us into near-infinite reflections of the wonder and the Beauty that He is.

We are those lights.

Clothed in a primordial darkness that is innocent as the first night, a living work in our Creator's hands, and mortally wounded from within by the Adversary of all creation.

Time in the world is a passage we all must endure.

Physical time must pass through the timeless in our hearts as threads through the eyes of needles - that we may together weave together a new creation with the LORD, our God and His Angels.

So here we are, destined by His Providence, even in this time and place, to live and prevail in Him. Freely and humanly, according to our own realizations of happiness and its willing pursuit.

Shining, together shining, shining and seeing far into this longest night - especially ordered according to the peace of our human communities - the nations of the one family of Mankind.

For when we are at peace as nations together, there is no darkness we can not pierce; no devouring beast or pursuing dragon that can prevent our swift and mighty ascent back to the LORD of all living communities and unto the Truth of His glory which is the realization of all our common human hopes.

This is why I shall never cease to have hope for my nation and for all our kindred nations. How can I? After all of this, it would be very difficult for me not to believe we can build a better, brighter world...

Dreaming as nations - together this time.
---<--@

The Ghost of Things to Come

I hate it when I see beauty in things...

I hate it that beauty is fleeting...

I know beauty is fleeting however,
not because of the beautiful in ourselves
and in all creation...

Beauty is fleeting
because of what is not beautiful.

Beauty is fleeting
that we may better remember her.
---<--@

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.

Zealous for Souls

God is.
And that is all.

God is - because life is.
Life is because - we are.

We are because - the soul is.
And the soul is because - God is.

And God is - unto all things living
for God is - the God of all the living!

- selah -

The soul is
possessed not -
of its own life.

It receives its being from
- the LORD Who is -
and life is its being.

From it,
arise every nature
of everything living.

And thus
by nature
is alive.

For all that is
in spirit - is alive.

It flows forth
from the soul
and is alive.

- selah -

What heart could truly love
without having beheld the beautiful?

The soul contains the living Breath
that breathes into everything that is - alive.

Separate it not from its Maker.

'Tis a manifestation of the Truth of its God.

Esteem it not by its smallness.

- selah -

What mind could truly think
without having thought about truth?

The soul is - the principle of life.
For God is - and gives shape to its being.

Mistake it not for its Master.

'Tis a reflection of the Life of its Creator.

Regard it not by its fragments.

- selah -

Why then, Starshine,
dost the eye of the heart
in regarding a soul without God
claimeth it has seen the soul
when it thinks of naught
but utter disrespect for life?

Who could trust the darkness
when it speaks of itself
about the light?

Thy own soul, precious Starshine,
may only be truly perceived
by other living souls.

That thou art by Beauty beheld!

Therefore -

Do not despair with those
who in death and in desolation
seeketh to perceive life in the living.

Neither weep with those
whose pre-occuppation with evil
have moved them to seek what is good.

There are some who seek,
who find they never find.

Yet, precious Starshine,
there are some who seek,
who are eventually found.

- selah -

Dear Starshine, the eye
that seeth far - into the soul
knoweth from where it proceeds.

It has come to know the majesty
of a myriad unfolding universes.

For it has come to behold the glory
of such dreams - in a grain of sand...

It beheld them in their moments,
as worlds upon worlds arising,
as truths that are everlasting,
and so - knoweth Spirit.

By the Love
through which one shines
far into the darkness - and into
the reality of other souls.

And in the Truth
through which one reaches
deep into the darkness - and into
the reality of other hearts.

- selah -

The soul is -
the principle of life.

And life is -
what gives shape to its being.

Being is
- what makes everything exist -
as they are.

And the soul is
- the being of its life -
being in every living being.

All have their being - because life is.

Thus,
all in Creation is -
because life is.

- selah -

In lower creation, being is
a soul - that is - in each - a soul.

'Tis in the trees and the plants of the earth.
'Tis in the animals of the land, sea, and air.

And gives them life.

- selah -

In higher creation, being is
a soul - that is - in each - a living soul.

'Tis in each Angel up in the heavens above.
'Tis in each Man here upon the earth below.

And gives us life.
And the knowledge of life.

- selah -

The soul of every Man
is heart and mind.

'Tis heart and mind
united as one!

For the heart proceeds.
And the mind knoweth.

 - selah -

And so the heart is in darkness.
And love awakens in darkness.

For the heart in every Man
knoweth not - 'tis a heart.

- selah -

And so the mind is in darkness.
And thought arises in darkness.

For the mind in every Man
knoweth not - 'tis a mind.

- selah -

The Beloved
beholds the heart
and the heart knows -
'tis a heart!

And the heart
in beholding the Beloved
beholds the Beautiful.

- selah -

The heart
in knowing itself
knoweth - thought.

And love
in knowing thought
knoweth - mind.

- selah -

The Beautiful
beholds the mind
and the mind knows -
'tis a mind!

And the mind
in beholding the Beautiful
beholds the Beloved.

- selah -

The mind
in knowing itself
knoweth - truth.

And love
in knowing truth
knoweth - self.

- selah -

The soul of every Man
is heart and mind.

'Tis heart and mind
united as one!

And spirit is - its brightness!

In the heart,
where the seat of the soul is,
'tis a brightness of love.

In the mind,
where the seat of the intellect is,
'tis a brightness of truth.

- selah -

For the heart proceeds.

As love must
from the seat of the soul
proceed -

And the mind knoweth.

As truth must
through the love in the heart
succeed -

And spirit is - its brightness!

- selah -

For the heart proceeds.

As the stars must
from the power of their being
shine forth -

And the mind knoweth.

As the stars must
through the reality of their truth
shine forth -

And spirit is - its brightness!

- selah -

Spirit is brightness.

For love
is the life of the heart
and beholds - the Beloved.

Love is -
not because of the heart:

For love
is the way of
every human heart.

- selah -

Truth is fullness.

For - the truth
is the light of the mind
and beholds -  the Beautiful.

Truth is -
not because of the mind.

For truth
is the way of
every human mind.

- selah -

We live
through the Life of a Being
that is eternal.

We love
through the Love of a Truth
that is absolute.

We think
through the Light of a Reality
that is infinite.

We are found
not because we seek to find what we seek
but because we have come seek of these things
in and of themselves - in God alone.

- selah -

Thus,
our beloved Starshine,

In spirit and for truth dost
each thy light ever proceed
from the seat of thy every soul
to alloweth thine own time to flow
through the abundance of every heart
into those many rivers and into their seas
that join into the one Ocean of the Infinite.

And in this -
Infinite Ocean
all in Humankind is  -
a species of living soul:
That make us all common
in each our being - just human.

For the human spirit is
everywhere the Beloved is
because everywhere the Beloved is,
there is Beauty - and verily,

Beauty is everywhere.
---<--@

Bring Back our Girls

 234 school girls kidnapped from a government school in Chibok. Those poor girls must be terrified and confused. Their families and friends must be heartbroken. Their local community must be in pain.

It was further reported in the news that the Nigerian government response to the incident has been less than the people of Chibok expected. In fact, it was almost outrageously indifferent to their plight. After a while, the contradictory politics of their State also became for them, a source of unnecessary distress.

It is easy to empathize with the humanity of the people of Chibok. Nameless, faceless Chibok - a human community of fellow living souls; of citizens gathered together into their Nation.

They are as we are. They dream the same basic dream of a reasonable freedom from the evils of the human condition. They work for the same ambition to simply be happy - as well as - happy enough in their community to be culturally and economically insulated from the darkness and despair of the world.

The shock of having 230 children forcibly taken from their families from within their own community must be all-consuming for the people of Chibok. I do not think they need more pain that that, especially not from their own government.

I certainly sympathize with my fellow human beings in Chibok who are my fellow citizen of the Nations. But I myself am confused by their government.

My fellow Filipinos, imagine the pain of Chibok's unbelief at the immediate wake of the incident. Imagine their tremendous need to be decisively led out of this confusion by the proper authorities from within their own Nation.

They called out to the Nigerian State and felt more confused by their own government response - or lack thereof. Imagine the pain of their slow realization, and their unbelief turning to grief.

Imagine their grief turn to outrage.

More so, imagine what those kids are feeling right now. I can not imagine those girls at this moment being able to think anything - only to feel. Feel there is some hope.

Hope is one of the main reasons - "we are" in our Nations, so that Justice may be brought to serve hope. And that hope may through Love and Remembrance be progressively realized through the economy of our generations - in behalf of our common humanity - for all our generations.

Truly, their kids right now - are our kids. 

After all, are they not like our own girls here in the Philippines? They need the love of their families and the affirmation of their communities. They are more vulnerable than our boys. They need to be shown they are loved and valued. And it also needs to be said to them - "I love you for you, it's ok to be you".

Girls are born beautiful. They just need to be brought up to understand how they may remember beauty as they grow up. They don't need to be told what beauty is - they know. They don't need to be told in what way they are beautiful as flowers need not be taught how it is in particular, to bloom.

I am sad for what happened in Chibok. I know many in my Nation feel the same way. I know many in other Nations kindred to us in soul also feel what we feel - for those girls, their families, friends, and community.

Let us not forget to pray for Nigeria, for Chibok, and for the stolen children of Chibok.

Let us remember in them also, all children who suffer the same plight - who are displaced from the love that gives them identity and strength by criminals who masquerade behind a cause that is either less than human or completely inhuman.

Let us remember all our Nation's causes are human causes. Justice, Mercy, Love - hope for life and hope of life - happiness, prosperity, peace.

We are different. Yet the same. This is why my Nation feels what the people of Chibok feels.

It is right to feel it. The wonder is why the Nigerian government does not.

May President Goodluck Jonathan set aside politics when it is clear that there is none to be had - Please, sir - cut the Gordian knot and be the leader your people need.

And - to Boko Haram - in behalf of those girls (and their dreams) they stole from us -

Bring back our girls. 
Then bring back their books.

May this incident be brought to its rightful conclusion. 

God bless the Philippines. God bless Nigeria. 

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

A message from my Nation's youth

Awesome vs. Not Awesome

The only way to counter racism is to foster a culture of racial harmony. 

Congratulations on your well-deserved Miss World victory, Megan,
you do honor to your people with your beauty and grace - salamat sa iyo. 

Miss World 2013, Megan Young, is awesome.


This person ain't (hopefully, just temporarily).

We could be friends, you know. 

Your India, if you really are from there, is an ancient human Nation and a vastly beautiful culture. I am in love with her just as much as I love my own.

Each of our Nations have distinct vulnerabilities, particular to our sufferings, for I'm not claiming India or the Philippines to be perfect either.

But this I do know, we are all possessed of something wonderfully good that makes it all worthwhile.

Because no matter the evil in the midst, large and expansive is our inherent capacity to hope and dream of better days. This makes us beautiful - as Nations and as individuals both - nowhere in All creation may be found such a great concentration of near limitless possibilities than in every human heart.

If only you are able to see that we are all struggling to be free from the fetters that keep us earth-bound and impoverished and incapable of just being happy. Because it is a difficult battle, Devina, this life.

We are rich or poor not on account of what we do to effect our ultimate release from the bonds that keep us unhappy, but on who we decide we truly are - so that each of us may hope to become - all throughout our choices in life - who we truly must - and be who we are - as a creation of a great and good God.

For all human work - no matter how menial - is directed towards this one goal of human happiness - a state of ultimate rest, a condition of perfect peace - a focus without focusing, a being without effort - all religions promise it - all revealed works teach it - all Mankind yearn for it.

In my rich Catholic faith, it is a state of Beatific Vision - the forever being with the Being of God - without the veil of time and the fear of mortality - felicity in Christ! Certainly, I would clean toilets to achieve it - if only it were that easy (or simple) - as many bowls as I can. 

You know this deep in yourself - this longing to be happy - because you too are - just like the rest of us, a human being.

So please try to acknowledge and appreciate what is enriching in our diversity and have a good think about your recent actions here so that, even though they were evil, you may yet profit from them.

May it all add up to your benefit. For Nations are expected to assist each other in this fight.

I forgive you, Miss DeDiva, and God bless you.

Thank you for uniting us more strongly as a Nation.

Salutation #107

A COMMUNITY DEPRIVED
of the feminine expression is barren and desolate.

It knows of no hearth,
no home, no place of rest...

no company to renew,

no heart to come home into;

no cheer to grace with solace,

no warmth to bless with courage;

no gaze to remind of beauty,

no love to bear with injury;

no touch to soften the harshness,

no fire to tame the wilderness;

no peace to prosper life,

no strength to ward off strife.

---<--@

(Woman)

When God made Woman,

the LORD fashioned her as a companion to Man;

a faithful helper, equal in dignity and promise,

without which Man

shall never be complete

as himself.

For there are no creatures

- upon the earth -

like Woman is to Man.

From this new community

God fashioned out of Man in Woman

comes the lineages

of all the generations

of the children of Mankind.

The truths established by God

in the story of the joining of Man and Woman

form the common foundations

of the institution of the human family.

It is the strength of the family

that determines the strength of the nations

unto which the preservation

of both human dignity and human promise

is universally entrusted by God

for the sustenance and protection

of all our generations

to the very last of our generations.

When the dignity of Woman

is left unprotected - and her promise -

is left undefended,

Man is not elevated but diminished.

When Man and Woman

exist in conflict with each other,

no nation will hope to survive the test of time.

That is the truth.

- selah -

Truly, truly,
each human relationship, no matter how humble,
have a lasting impact on individuals.

For these are the bonds
that God deigns to place in our way
not to entangle our spirits
and create more brokenness in our lives
but to liberate us
and allow us to freely enter
into the Truth with Him
and in Him.

Community is the LORD's way
of enlarging the love kept in our souls,
because our God is a great and good God.

We can see this in the way
God created the first community
in Adam and Eve.

Let us ask ourselves
how instead of reprogramming Adam,
which was not beyond the LORD's power to do,
why did our God choose to bless him
with a partner in Eve?

- selah -

Relationships matter
just as much as individuals -
each creates and recreates the other
and does so in a way and a fashion
that only the LORD can generate and perfect
with our willing cooperation.

One who seeks maturity
and longs for wholeness in the self
should always tread the holy ground of relationships
(either thine own or others like thine own)
carefully, gently, and with love.

- selah -

This is why

it is important for us to celebrate

International Women's Day -

We must ever be reminded

of this fundamental community of Man and Woman

and must always live in remembrance

of this most vital of all human relationships

- established by God Himself -

which forms the nucleus of every human family.

The success of any nation depends on it.

The ultimate destiny of all Countries is shaped

by how deeply we understand its truth.

Man and Woman

together form a common bond

and this bond guarantees

not only the order of our generations

but the quality of our everyday human living.

Man and Woman

together form a common witness
for the universal example

of the peace of their marital togetherness

- safeguards -

not only the transmission of human life

but the divinely ordained purpose

of the nations of the children of Mankind.

---<--@

Think about it -

I once thought that Filipina hair

was just plain black hair and that was all.

Obviously,

I was not at all in love

with my Philippines then.

I never really noticed

that our women sported not just plain black hair!

Framed by the warm light of our tropical sun,

our women's hair is actually cast

- in many subtle hues -

in darkest shades of golden brown.

Subtle, not obvious -

and pretty but

- only when -

love is in the eye of the beholder.

Exactly in keeping with our conservative nature.

As far as I am concerned,

all our Filipinas are princesses.

Beauty being what it is, inherited.

We should work to make sure

- this Country of ours -

is more a suitable place for all our women!

---<--@

March 8 is International Women's Day.

I love my Miyang. PERIOD.

On Being Beautiful

Carnality when it imposes itself upon the soul of Man usurps the image of the one Beautiful in every living being - when Man allows this to freely happen to his heart, the heart no longer beholds the beautiful but beholds something else entirely.

We become accustomed to ascribing beauty to the most hideous of things...

---<--@

Our precious Starshine -



DO NOT DESPAIR.

Beauty is primarily expressed in the feminine.

It is a state. You were born in it.

For you are thus,

and so with all beautiful things - must strive -

to return to our LORD with it - being as you are -

in the way that you are constantly remembered

by our God in eternity.

Beauty is joyful.

Eternally youthful.

It is not a feeling.

It is never passing.

Beauty is chaste.

It can be claimed only by Love.

It is not carnal.

Invincible against lust.

Beauty is free -

You do not have to strive to be beautiful, O precious Starshine,

for Beauty is somewhere you may always return to,

- here, in your heart of hearts -

a sufficiency that you share with the one Beautiful.

Nor must must others approve of your being yourself -

for as flowers must bloom each in their own time, so will you.

Therefore, Beloved of God,

establish your roots in the timeless image and likeness within thyself

and strive everyday to reach out into the outside world

that needs so much of what you have to offer.
---<--@

O Unspeakable Beauty

O UNSPEAKABLE BEAUTY that surrounds, penetrates and transcends into Eternity, O Beauty that shines forever brightly, ever here and ever there, ever always present in places sacred to Thy holy remembrance, in places found within the soul of every creature in need of Thee.

Arise in me and cure me of my deformity, my perversity, my ugliness, my constant rebellion.

Though I weep with guilt and shame at every thought of Thee, though I should recede back into the darkness where I truly belong, Thou has seen into my soul and my soul has caught a glimpse of Thee!

O what can a mere creature do at the hint of Thee, O unspeakable Beauty?

By Thy own Truth, Thou hast enraptured my heart and now I am madly in love with Thee.

I reject all that is not Thee!

Ever in spite of me, I constantly long for Thee, I thirst and I hunger for Thee.

O Beauty, Thou art Beautiful for Thy being Beautiful, who can resist Thee?

Bless me, convince me, lead me on and fulfill what Thou sees as Thy reflection in me. Become the fullness of Thy own image and likeness that Thou has imparted in me, and lose me forever into the depths of Thy Being.

Make use of me and recreate me into an instrument of Thy holy creation and a servant to all Thy beautiful works of divine artistry.

O wonderful God, O wonderful God! O what majesty! O what glory! O what Beauty! Thou art truly Beautiful for Thy being Beautiful. Arise in the hearts of all Thy servants, arise in our poor world, that we may learn to see what is beautiful for being beheld by Thee.

Abide in us, O dearest LORD and Love of my love, spread upon our souls Thine infinite horizons and become for each one of us as the breaking of the new dawn from on high.

AMEN.

I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine.