Alive to the Memory

In thy seeking, understand,
dearest Starshine -

To one without remembrance,
a hundred lives is no different
to a million lives.

But to one who is alive to the memory,
to save one life is to save 
the world entire.

That thou mayest remember
to always remember them
- in silence solemn -
by name.
---<--@

No Remembrance

Let our Banner be unto thyself a symbol of unity, my people,

and let it fly in thy heart out of love of God and Country.

Yea, let this Banner fly in thy heart of hearts or not at all!

For if this one kind of love is absent in the absent heart of Man,

there shall our Country be found nowhere in creation.

Excerpt from Salutation #10

No remembrance, no timeless being, 

nor knowledge past nor present knowing, 

nor love, nor truth, nor freedom a space - 

to plant and stay, and to grow always; 

no primacy of persons nor significance of place, 

no sense of limitlessness, no sense of spirit, 

no timeless vision nor heavenly season, 

no sacredness, no sentience, no abiding grace, 

no reason, no rhyme, 

no trace...

---<--@

To bury the past is to (1) separate from it and (2) apart from it, (3) move on. 

To our Nation, this is a labor the LORD commanded - it is a particular Burden we bear in Liberty, which we will soon expound upon as well. In the meantime, please feel free to reflect on it.

Here is the Biblical Reference: (Genesis 9: 1-17, with particular attention to verse 5): 

1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Breed, multiply and fill the earth.

2 Be the terror and the dread of all the animals on land and all the birds of heaven, of everything that moves on land and all the fish of the sea; they are placed in your hands.

3 Every living thing that moves will be yours to eat, no less than the foliage of the plants. I give you everything,

4 with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it.

5 And I shall demand account of your life-blood, too. I shall demand it of every animal, and of man. Of man as regards his fellow-man, I shall demand account for human life.

6 He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created. (Here is another Scriptural admonition against the Despoliation of the Sword, that the Duty of the Common Defense is a National Burden, and that the murder of Innocents - in any circumstance - to all faithful Nations of the Children is never permissible - that it does happen in warfare does not alter the spirit of this admonition. War is to be withstood, and battle overcome - even before taking the field.)

7 Be fruitful then and multiply, teem over the earth and subdue it!' (Reiteration of the original commission to build up the Inhabited Earth and make it all to the LORD, "very good".)

8 God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons,

9 'I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come,

10 and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth.

11 And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth.'

12 'And this', God said, 'is the sign of the covenant which I now make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come:

13 I now set my bow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14 When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds,

15 I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.

16 When the bow is in the clouds I shall see it and call to mind the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth, that is, all living things.'

17 'That', God told Noah, 'is the sign of the covenant I have established between myself and all living things on earth.' (emphasis on the totality of scared life through Man - and in time, as we know whom God hath called to live in witness of these present days - Man through Christ.)

"To the heart of a man without remembrance, there is no difference between one human life and a thousand. But to such a one who among the Nations labors to keep for God, a present and living account of his fellow human beings - to save one life is to save the world entire."

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.

Salutation #127

That we lead many nations
in terms of faith - only means one thing,
we are a people prepared.

- selah -

For the burden of the times
is a burden of expectation.

If it were a burden of justice,
would any nation survive?

Therefore,
do not despair,
my people.

Believe.

---<--@


(Burden of Expectation)

What does a nation do with a burden?
It bears it together!
---<--@

THERE IS
an expectation - under heaven -
about this one nation of ours;
a requirement to succeed.

What is it about expectations
that make us cringe, my compatriots?

To whom much is given,
much must also be expected!

Is the Filipino truly free?

Have we become a nation mired
in a state of permanent revolution?

The mindset of War requires division - even in the midst -
but against whom must we fight against these days?

Increasingly,
we are becoming a people exhausted,
a nation dark and despairing,
trampled upon by unnamed tyrannies
and nameless tyrants.

Is the Filipino truly free?

- selah -

What is this freedom, this vaunted liberty?

We are a nation distinct, a nation among nations;
we are a nation led by a vision enshrined in our Constitution,
bounded by laws, and governed by an entire lineage of sacred trust
that goes from strength to strength and hope to hope
embodied - in time - through the Offices of this Republic
and duly represented by the mandates carried
by each their presiding Seats of public service
in persons elected or appointed.

We are a human society,
endowed by Almighty God with a culture,
a history, customs, traditions, aspirations, civic values,
and a freedom to pursue the happy ends
for which our generations (as a whole)
have dedicated and gained for this nation
self reliance and self determination
at such a cost!

What is it about the national success
that is becoming so fearful to us, O my nation,
that we have come to shun it?

Have we forgotten who we are?

No other nation upon the earth
can build upon this one, faithful Republic
the foundation of all her better days
than this particular nation -
this one Filipino nation!

Truly, there is a requirement for us to succeed!

But this requirement - under heaven -
(being that rightful expectation we all, as fellow citizens, share)
is only a requirement - and shall remain so -
as a thing remembered for us by God
and reminded in our hearts - these days -
by the most beneficent will of His Providential grace.

We have yet to claim it and make it ours!

And so let us together say, "yes, indeed."

There is a requirement for us to succeed!

- selah -

We are no different
from our other kindred nations
yet we are also distinct from each of them
because of the things that gather us together
into one common, human belonging; one nation.

We can not allow ourselves
to be defined by the those things
that strive against our peace,
that seek to tear us apart,
but by our free and human belongings
to each other as a whole,
one and distinct.

A nation - is - the people
- and - our connections - with and to each other;
our relationships - as citizens to each other -
and what (Who) animates and informs it.

Our freedom proceeds from this realization.

For we can not truly become free
to fulfill our national aspirations
until we have learned to serve
- as citizens to each other -
and we can not become
- as citizens to each other -
unless we participate in the work
to achieve a better Philippines.

And that this Republic is but one work.

- selah -

I have a belief 
in our beloved Philippines 
that transcends mere optimism.

And I often feel,
if I think about it long enough,
that I have come to a conviction of this
long before our time.

It is as though
it has always been there,
and never at all was it lost.

It sought as I sought
and now - we are together -
in our seeking.

And
in this togetherness,
we are together sheltered.

- selah -

The work we must do
to restore to ourselves our Republic endeavor
is not just the work of our government
in the Responsible State (not just the President's)
- it is ours as well, my people beloved of God.

It may only be accomplished
by nations and indeed, it may only be accomplished
by this particular nation, our one Filipino nation!

This is why I am addressing
much of this communication to each of you:

Only as
- we, the people -
can we effectively stand
against the evils of our present times.

Truly,
my fellow Filipino compatriots,
we should only expect for ourselves,
united across differences and one in our generations,
to succeed because victory is the only lineage
that belongs to the national peace
we must soon come to profess -
together this time.

Now is the time for peace:

This is our time.

Peace, I salute you.

(original produced 20100914)
---<--@

Battlestrong

Salutation #123

This Salutation is about the national discourse, and illustrates the dynamism of our democracy, it bids us never forget that the LORD, our one, true God and Eternal King, is forever included in the continuing dialogue of our one Republic endeavor.

(The Plan)

THERE IS A PLAN;
a plan that must constantly
renew and reinvent itself.

For it must!

In this way,
it is a humble plan.

For one can not know it all.

Nor can one claim to own it all.

It is a simple plan;
a plan that one must be able
to express clearly and sincerely.

A plan that one must be able
to see and to share freely
in and among all of us
who are willing to build
and improve upon it.

It is a plan
for everybody
meant to be shared
by everybody.

It is a plan
one knows one can never finish
by one's own self alone
without you,
my fellow Filipinos.

For this plan,
my brothers and sisters of the Promise,
is a plan for the nation.

It is a plan for us.

- selah -

Indeed,
God has a plan for you, my Country.
But I can not tell you of this plan...

I can tell you it's a wonderful plan. 
I can tell you its a plan meant for our good. 
I can tell you its a plan of happiness. 
I can tell you its a plan for all Filipinos
(as citizens and human beings to each other
and as a nation among one family of nations).

Deep in our soul, it is written;
a promise of victory,
a song of songs!

You know this plan, my compatriots.

For God has a plan for us, my nation.

But I can not tell us of this plan...
we have to tell it to each other.

---<--@

This Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday 2012, alleluia!

20110327

Gaps in the Line

There are gaps in the line of my Generation X -
the lonely spaces of missing lives,
the unfulfilled promises of those individuals
taken before their time...
the results of man's evil against man.

In those other generations before my time
these gaps were the unwanted effects of war and crime.
In my Generation X,
though war and crime still takes its toll
most of these gaps in the line
are the result of abortions.

It is no small wonder my Generation X is hurting - a lot.
---<--@

Let us now, for a moment, go back to the debate regarding the RH Bill:

As regards to our nation, there exists only one evil end that I should like to warn you about and this evil end is the abomination of the desolation of war - the one defeat that this nation and all of its present generations should be wary about. Because through many and diverse methods, it shall make a relentless sport of the life of our nation.

Against the will of this evil, we must be just as relentless in our vigilant desire to preserve our peace as a nation (distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind).

Though abortion is not perceived to be the central issue as regards to the RH Bill. I shall not fail to make mention of it here. For the evil of abortion serve the same end as it must be obvious to many of us now.

Those missing gaps I have mentioned above constitute a lack in human promise. We are left all the more weaker in our generations when human promise is left wanting in the nation.

Indeed, our representative congress has a commitment to pass the right laws. What I hope to avoid for our nation is a weakening of its vitality through laws passed that are in reality anti-human and so instead of binding what evil there is bind what good there is.

There are nations in our world today who are suffering because of this lack in vitality so that we are not left wanting in those lessons we can not afford to learn ourselves.

I should like to point out to you, my honorable compatriots, that we are as a nation a pledge of the victory of Sacred Life. We exist to preserve both human dignity and human promise.

In my own view, the essence of the RH Bill is education. It is more than just simple choice. More than that, it is about fostering the right choices in our people.

It is about quality of life issues in this nation - how to improve it?

It is about poverty as a social justice issue in this Republic - how to diminish it?

It is about population demographics - how to utilize it in pursuit of the national good?

It is about traditional Filipino family values - how to preserve it?

It is about the order of our generations - how to obtain its completeness?

To wit, it is all about engendering a new sense of freedom in our people and therefore, the duties that must accompany it. So what are these duties?

The passing of any kind of RH law in this Republic will impact the way in which Filipino society as a national whole will perceive what kind of responsibility we shall as individual citizens attach to these questions, and therefore, how courageously and how consistently we shall apply ourselves to the constant demand for answers in the civic sphere.

All of these have a direct bearing on the national destiny. All of these are shaped by the

laws that must always be guided by a will to preserve this sense of a

responsible freedom in our people.

This debate is contentious. But let it also be guided by civility and a sense of loyalty to the nation. It can not descend into blindness. For if we are not vigilant in our freedom and allow ourselves to become so divided in our hearts about this debate, we shall still come to calamity.

The sheer weight of the division that this issue represents to us must not completely suffocate our burning desire to recognize what we are all trying to promote in common with each other through this debate. If we allow this to happen, it is the least of us Filipinos who shall suffer. It will add to the debt of Justice and multiply burdens.

Lastly, as regards to the evil of abortion, it is not the number of cells in a fetus that define our being human, it is how we treat each other.

Angel of the Nations

I would like us to think about this:

How we treat each other counts for much.

I've often asked in prayer to know the proper name of the Angel of the Philippines. It is never given to me. As much as I would like to tell you what it is, my fellow Filipino compatriots, I do not know. This is so because we are what we do.

The nation is present in ourselves when we do the things that are proper to our nationhood.

This is true

especially when it concerns the unmet needs of the very least of the children of God and Country, the poorest and the most defenseless of our brothers and sisters in the promise.

We are what we do.

---<--@

A Day of Days

To my brother and sister Christians, the world is so full of troubles indeed. If you are confused, do not be afraid. For this world is shrouded in a spiritual darkness. This confusion is a symptom of the times.

Darkness is but darkness that does not lead us to the light. So do not hold on to what must pass away with the ebb and flow tide of exile time. Time is an ascent of the truth and the Truth is not of the darkness. Fear the LORD, He is God!

Sunday is our day of worship and rest.

It is that day of days we are obliged by sacred duty to go to church and, for Catholics like myself, to celebrate Holy Mass. This day was made for you and me, dear Christian soul - for each of us.

This day of days, my fellow Filipino compatriots - those of us who are the sons and daughters of Holy Mother Church and all who invoke the name of Jesus Christ - the nation can wait. For today among all days we shall renew our commitment to peace and common humanity before God.

Today we shall rest our souls and refresh our spirits.

Let us know that we have our other brothers and sisters, honorable Filipino compatriots each and every one of them, especially those of the faith of our Father Abraham, who shall keep the fort for us this day as we must do for them on their days of obligatory worship to the one LORD and Sovereign of all nations.

Let none of us here say peace who live upon our lands without its meaning being first understood in the heart with a conviction of faith.

We shall be vigilant for each other.

The peace of our Philippines must no longer be vexed by the evil of religious wars; a perplexing feature of the last great age of war.

This mindset of division require a form of monolatry - each to his own one god. This is a form of idol worship. The curse of monolatry is a peril we can no longer ignore in this present age.

If it is truly our desire to obtain from heaven the peace that prospers, we must know that God is the God of all - God is and that is all. He is the LORD and there is no other like Him.

So let your mind dwell on God this day making certain that when you shall enter deeper into the inexhaustible mystery of our Christian faith - in personal prayer and above all, in community with other Christians, most especially at Holy Mass, you enter with all your heart and all your soul into the most profound depths of the Trinitarian mystery.

This will strengthen you - each one of us - for the work of peace-building that we are all as a nation (distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind) presently tasked by God to do; that my generation and the generation after mine (X and Y) in particular have been commissioned by our Lord Christ to accomplish (X and Y for Z).

Go open wide the eyes of thy hearts to the Incarnate Word of God, thy True Light and let flee the darkness from within our poor selves. Pray so that the ears of your inward hearing may hear the eternal message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then let us go bathe our broken hearts in its everliving waters.

Let us Catholics receive fervently together the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the altar, and then let us serve. Let us serve with all those who invoke Christ as Savior and Lord, who share with us one common baptism. For serve we must. Let us repent of our past ways.

As the Muslims say, we shall compete in good works, my fellow Filipino compatriots, as citizens to each other - together this time.

This is our burden of expectation:

We shall break completely with the momentum of past two thousand years by breaking the rule of war in each our hearts. A difficult thing indeed, but not by God Who everyday fills for each of us and for each our nations what is impossible for Man to do in and of himself alone.

For the War in heaven is in the heart. We must remain vigilant. We must refuse the spirit of War entry into our world from a heart submitted to the truth, even to the peace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer of all Mankind. To accept this truth is to refuse division a toehold on this nation.

In this world of ours, cast adrift in a void that is hostile upon hostile to all of life both body and soul (most especially to all human life which is hated above all by the evil and all evil things), the only other freedom that reaches out to the freedom of Man reaching out from that loneliness from within our heart is the freedom of God.

Both the void of space and the void of war lay eager to consume the life of both the body and the soul. To the heart of Man, its emptiness is maddening, and its oblivion is certain.

But the LORD, our God, is merciful to all those who love and fear Him. He knows our sufferings intimately. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we know that God is the Fullness of Compassion.

Brothers and sisters, for all the good things our God had worked for us, in our lives and in the life of our nation, the things we truly ought to be most thankful about are those we don't have any knowledge about, for of these things are the greatest of evils made, those evils from which God has chosen to deliver us. Because as Jesus Christ Himself taught, God indeed delivers from evil - each person, each family, each tribe, each nation, even the world entire.

Isn't this the purpose for which our Emmanuel came to our world - to deliver us, all of us?

Our God is indeed a good God, a very good God.

There is no reason God will not relent to deliver us now - in this darkness. If only we hear Him.

So today we shall remember the LORD:

That God is and that is all - That He is God - the LORD, our God, The God Who loves us all - the Father Who sent to us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ Who one with the Holy Spirit lives and reigns with the Father, One God forever.
---<--@

I LOVE YOU, my nation -

I love you, my people:
Our hustle and bustle life,
our noisy, chaotic streets
full of pedestrian colors
and the sweetness of
our nameless, honest labors.

O my Philippines, advance!
Into brighter, better days
where I know
our hearts belong.

O my Filipino compatriots,
companions of national destiny:
We are not a bad people
these are just bad times,
but let us fear not
for I have seen our hearts
and I know we have it in ourselves
to make it all right.

We are a people of the peace,
stalwart defenders of Sacred Life -
and worthy of each others sacred trust.

Let us remain who we are
to become our better selves:
One nation, strong for being faithful
with one, indivisible peace
under the eternal vigilance
of our one Almighty God
and valiant keepers
of each other's
human hope and good will.

These evils times will pass
and all will be well, my nation,
we shall outlast these evil days.

All will be well, peace -
my one people.

I love you,
We love you -
O eternal Philippines -
from always to always.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

20110312

The Earthquake in Japan

My initial reaction as regards to the news of the massive earthquake yesterday afternoon just off the coast of north east Japan was one of shock. I also felt somewhat afraid:

"I've never heard of a magnitude 8.9 in all of my life", I though to myself.

My heart goes out to the Japanese people.

Massive as the quake was, my friends, and the huge 10-meter high tsumani waves that came in its wake, it is currently being reported this morning that the damage as regards to human life is comparably less worse.

This is all thanks to Japanese foresight and ingenuity. Their building code did its fundamental job of preserving the basic integrity of structures thus sparing the lives of those other citizens who would have suffered greater harm had their authorities been less vigilant and less diligent in their duties.

The loss of lives for a calamity of this scale would (or could) have run into the many thousands.

Truly, my friends, we are only able (as well as enabled) to effectively learn our lessons from mirroring the experience of other nations exclusively in a climate of peace. Thus, we should be just as vigilant, just as diligent as they. For we too, exist with Japan in the Pacific ring of fire. And our Responsible State too, alongside Japan, exists with the same mandate to preserve the promise and the dignity of our citizens.

I realize we have found ourselves on opposite sides with the Japanese during WWII but the past is most certainly the past. We can neither live in the past as human beings nor build upon it as human nations. We have to address the issues, where they exist, in the prevailing climate of the present time as if the past has truly passed us away forever because it has.

Once you have made the choice for peace - at a time, times and half-a-time - there can be no more looking back. If we are to throw off the tyranny of war and to pass over the oppression of its shadow there can be no more division in the heart this time. The justice that we serve (and that serves us) is not animated by anger nor served by division.

Now, there was a certain amount of fear in my own nation about the news received yesterday of the earthquake and the consequent tsunami in Japan. Everyday people were talking about it. This fear is healthy. No nation desires to be hurt in its soul by a disaster of this magnitude.

It was unfounded as well. We did not sustain any damage at all from the tsunami waves that ripped all about the Pacific rim as well as the Island nations all across it. We should be thankful and glad for ourselves and fear God Whose pleasure it is to save and to strengthen us.

There was even a certain amount of religious suspicion that blindly invoked the wrath of God upon our kindred Japanese nation. Now, was God punishing Japan then? No.

The burden of these times is one of expectation and not of judgment. If it were not, would any nation survive? Which of us is not guilty of war in the heart? Indeed, we should be thankful and glad for ourselves and fear God Whose pleasure it is to save and to strengthen us. Let us pray then to God for the strength to persevere in our choice to follow the path of peace.

Let us be always reminded of this, brothers and sisters. Let us always be reminded in our heart of hearts that these are the times - the favorable season for peace - when we should be rightly guided by the brightness of our hopes - dreaming as nations together this time - and not find ourselves sunk again into the dismal depths of despair, utterly mired in the poverty of war and division, caught in the gravity of the void. Indeed, all of this, my dear friends, should help us to overcome the inertia of the last 2000 years - together this time.

Having said all that, Japan has still sustained massive damage. And it is really a terrible thing indeed. The clean up itself, it was further reported, could run into the billions.

I bid us all, my honorable compatriots, to pray for the victims of this latest tragedy to befall our one family of nations. And to do all that we can to extend to the Japanese nation our sincerest sympathies and willing help.

Then we must do all that we must, as far as we can, to carry on with the task of peace-building set before our hearts and our hands by God. That we may in the near future realistically look forward to being more enabled, empowered and equipped to extend such a help to our fellow citizens abroad (as in the case of our merchant mariners who are still being held against their will by pirates in Somalia) and even to our fellow nations whenever and where ever necessary - most especially here, in our own region in Mother Asia, our own local neighborhood with ASEAN.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.


Randomness of Nature

20110305

Daniel 12

The evils of the present times are manifest enough to satisfy the requirements of human reason unaided by the light of faith. For the need for peace is such that all our nations recognize it by the depth of the darkness war has wrought upon our humanity and our world.

But such is the LORD that God has made provision to fortify the faith of those whose hearts are so inclined that all may indeed work for peace (and peace rightly understood).

Let me now share with you, my friends, my interpretation of the passage in Daniel 12. Far be it for me to be so bold as to presume, I will not suffer to forever hold my peace on something that has time and again proven itself to me as truth in my heart.

The signs of the times seem to me so obvious as to be compelling and since it involves all of us in all our nations, woe to me if I keep it from you. For if I see the danger lurking, if I see the enemy of our nations approaching, will I not cry out to you who share with me a common humanity?

I shall therefore entrust to you what I have long kept in myself and leave it to your discernment.

We have so far sought about this peace enough to understand that peace indeed is the craft of all nations. For in reality, all nations are responsible for each other.

Daniel 12 decisively places its emphasis on the importance of individuals in the healing of nations and the importance of nations in the healing of our failing world.

Time is 1000 years, Times is 2000 years, Half-a-Time is a 50/50 choice - shadow (uncertainty) being made half of light and half of darkness, we are in each our hearts presented now with a choice between war as a paradigm and peace as a paradigm.

The difference between the days in Daniel 12 which is 1290 days leading up to 1335 days being the year 2009 through to 2045.

Because as time flows from the timeless flowing from the Throne of the LORD in every human heart, the work of the heart (which is each individual human heart) always precedes the work of the earth (our X and Y Generations among all the nations, in particular from the three, great Abrahamic lineages).

2009-2012 denotes an initial period of awakening; a period set aside by God. This is most especially true for each of us today in 2011 - a year of choices.

Therefore, the necessary groundwork of effective peace-building both within as well as between our nation-states should be established within this time.

2012 shall be a turning point. How it shall come to pass depends on the choices we make today.

2012 is a time of testing. It is perceived as a burden of expectation and not of judgment. How decisive it shall be for us as nations depends completely on how decisive we allow ourselves to become here and now as individuals - to be present in the here and now for the peace and the peace properly understood.

When the sign appears, it shall be too late.

2012, if war is hastened, shall be calamitous. This hastening, if we shall at present choose to largely ignore the signs, shall be accompanied by fire from the sky which is a large-scale impact event. It is worth noting that in 2009, Jupiter was hit yet again by a Shoemaker-Levy type extra-planetary body.

In the order of grace, my friends, there is no such thing as a random event; that one particular year of years - 2009 - in the context of billions of years of time and space is not coincidental.

However, it must also be duly noted that the main emphasis of the passage in Daniel 12 is the deliverance that is being offered and not the global catastrophe that seem so foreboding in its inevitability with or without the assistance of a large-scale impact event.

An example of this kind of deliverance being Y2K as a non-event was already manifested in the year 2000 but was largely ignored or consigned to the imaginary realm of pure luck: That God delivers from evil, as in our Lord's Prayer, is never due to random chance, this was not learned by our nations in 2000.

It took 2000 (or 2009) years for this choice for peace to become comprehensible to our souls. But after this time, this choice shall no longer be a choice.

Were this same choice for peace presented to our nations at an earlier time than this present time, it would have been futile. For no nation before this time would have had the developed capacity to comprehend it meaningfully.

Therefore, if we in our nations are to willfully pass up this invitation to draw nearer to the LORD, during this season of peace - together this time, we shall no longer be without any accountability.

War which is the enemy of all nations, if we do not bind it today - together this time, shall be set loose upon our generations. And all of our living memory shall not even be enough to contain the remembrance of this destruction.

---<--@

The Quest for Peace in the Middle East

The roots of war is ancient. Therefore, who is to blame for the presence of war in the Middle East? No one. Who is to blame for the absence of peace in the Middle East? Everyone.

Now, what I mean to say when I write about the "siege of war" being broken only from the Middle East is that the epicenter of this interpretation is the Israel-Palestine or Palestine-Israel division in general and Jerusalem in specific.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, concerned as we are about the well-being of our own peace, we must also connect (in our minds and in our hearts) our own peace-building initiatives with that of Israel and Palestine.

And I also enjoin the citizens of those other nations longing for a better world to do likewise.

What shall it gain us to achieve a greater peace in our own lands if the labor of building up the (inhabited) earth which is the undertaking of all nations fails?

We must do what we can and work to become bigger than our own national interests.

---<--@

The Israel-Palestine/Palestine-Israel Division

What happened to you, O Israel -
pitted against your own soul,
a nation among nations
at war against thy own peace?

The past has been terrible,

but the night shall soon wane

the darkness shall fade forever

and the dawn shall arrive.

None shall be left in the night!

We will do this - together this time.

The everyday, ordinary Palestinian is like a seed caught in a storm. Indeed, they are as a people like so much seeds blown hither tither, seemingly at random, and mostly by forces beyond their control. But however strong the storm these seeds remain as seeds - in the quiet, waiting for its time to grow. That is the truth.

Now, the Palestinian people are not a perfect people.

But the Palestinian people is a nation. Therefore, there is nothing either on earth or in heaven that can prevent their emergence save their own rejection of this truth. Now, it is you, O Israel, who have helped them to embrace their own nationhood. Therefore it is you, O Israel, who must also stand with them. Do so now, O Israel, do so now.

It is the natural right of all nations to fulfill each their own potential as a particular undertaking of Country upon the earth. This right was not denied you. This right will not be denied them.

So turn now to your brother in unity. You must find it once again in your heart to accept their own humanity with your own. For there is a purpose and an order to all things under heaven, each in their own times and seasons under the LORD.

To reject this truth is to propagate the conflagration of the last great age of war. It is to prolong our suffering and to do this is not human and an inhuman nation is an abomination to God and to itself.

So let the climate of these times turn to the peace, all ye nations. This is our time.

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

It is difficult. But it is not impossible. Indeed, there are many things in the way of our returning to peace that are left to each our own free and human choice. But not war, O Israel, not war.

War is a spirit. It will most certainly prevent the emergence of peace in your region in Asia. The momentum of the last 2000 years will most certainly try to us all into a deadly complacency. For the siege of war may indeed only be broken from your region in Asia. And the beast knows it.

Let me tell you here and now, O Israel, that the blessings of the peace that awaits us all in this new age far outweighs all of these present anxieties. This is not beyond you. In fact, the choice now lies squarely within your reach.

If we work to achieve this necessary requirement under heaven, the enormous potential of the one family of the nations of Mankind shall become unleashed in the service of our common humanity: What once served the will of war shall now be brought into the service of the peace of the LORD, our God, for all Mankind.

We will find respite for our failing world - together this time.

It shall not be perfect before the Day. But it shall no longer be a labor wrought in bitterness and tears. So exercise prudence. Look for wisdom. Seek for justice and the healing of hurts. But you must pray. Pray now with an urgency. Pray now with an understanding of the times. Pray now with a knowledge of our hopes together in time. Pray now with the brightness and the force of a heart undivided.

Let us all pray now for the peace all nations even as we pray also for the peace of each our own. Let us all who desire a better world desire peace with all sincerity.

Finally, to help us understand the question that is now being presented to each our hearts do not look for answers before 2009.

For all of it, (time, times through to 2009) including the "war on terror", is one entire proposition, a plaidoyer if you will, that in the midst of the silence within our souls must, God-willing, incline us all to peace. Lest we forget.

All of it, God-willing, must lead each our hearts, willingly and freely, unto the LORD, our God, the one Sovereign of all nations.

In this way, in this age, which is different from all the ages before this one, we are all pioneers.

May it be so, O ye nations, may it be so, O beloved people Israel. Let us work our way through to 2012. Let us all work to complete each our own remembrances and and make the choice for peace today while it is still today.

No nation learns in isolation. No Country matures on its own.

Palestinian Christian, I believe in your nationalism:

Do not be deluded by the darkness that deceives

for the spirit of war lusts for all nations equally

but your unity is your nation's guarantee.

Do not be embarrassed. Do not be confused.

The God Who loves us all - He is the LORD of our Lord.

Therefore, in God through our Lord, Jesus Christ,

there is both a will and a way for all of us.

Be perfect in this way,

encompassing all things in your heart of hearts -

tolerate no division, no chaos, no enmity...

and all this for love of God and Country

and you will find rest.

The War in heaven is in the heart.

Your place in the Middle East is meant for better things,

much better things...

---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God be with us all.

20110209

My honorable Filipino compatriots, don't you know we have not yet begun to build?

You must never allow yourselves to become prone to comparing our Country with others before our time. This inclination only leads to disillusionment, bitterness and despair.

Whatever difficulties God has set before our nation is sufficient for us in our day. Verily, God allows each undertaking of Country upon the earth a measure of evil sufficient for the good of each nation according to His most beneficent design for all the children of Mankind.

If today we somehow feel we do not yet possess a sense of national history illustrious enough to satiate that desire within our collective memory as a people, it is only because this history is still being written for us and by us even this very day.

Never must you delve again into the things we ought not to be, my nation, because what we take into our hearts these days will invariably dictate what our generations make of this land and its peoples.

Therefore, we must, under the eternal vigilance of Almighty God, exercise our citizenship to each other with the utmost fidelity.

If we are to emerge into our ages in time, we must know by instinct that as far as Country goes, we are all Filipinos - one work, one people, one destiny.

This is not to say that we shall allow evil to dwell in our land, this is to say that we shall now work to banish it - into the void, forever. For true citizenship does not make deals with the evil in all evil things.

But let us also not forget, my fellow Filipino compatriots, here in this present time, that we are still at the twilight of our present awakening. Here, O my nation, where our greatest enemy is truly only the darkness itself (or as Kenneth Cragg eloquently stated in his book, "Palestine", the guilt of structures, the wrongs of society i.e. the inhumanity in interhumanity).

Therefore, let us be gentler in our dealings with one another. Let us be kinder in our perceptions about ourselves. We have no other master now but the freedoms our nation have gained for itself at such a cost; a liberty we must continually purchase with much sacrifice and vigilance of heart.

We have no other sovereign now but the LORD Whose manifest will it is for us to succeed in our quest for an abiding peace and true self-determination; God Whose most efficacious and decisive assistance we may always rely upon.

Never again must you lose sight of the hope that we have always possessed as a people. Nor the love that must forever bind us all together in our authentic human freedoms. Nor the faith that allow for our nation to overcome all that is adversity.

In the midst of these present travails, O my people, never again must you believe in despair. Be generous in this way, my nation Philippines, and we shall not fail to see the morning dawn upon this Land of Promise.

---<--@

For the Philippine Peace Process:

Concentrate on building up the national community. This is our primary task.

Let us not forget that the foundation of a meaningful, sustainable, durable peace is a strong and vibrant national community.

If we neglect this or lose sight of it, we will - as ordinary citizens, lose our necessary sense of an abiding connection to the larger process of peace-building that we, as a nation, have duly invested in our responsible state.

This larger peace process is only secondary to this task of nation-building with which we as ordinary citizens are everyday engaged.

Everything we do as a nation is connected to this larger peace process (and this larger peace process is also connected to the greater peace-building initiatives around our world).

In this way, your smallest kindness counts for much. If you are to be kind to our poor and needy compatriots, you affirm the peace in our communities. If you help them but above all teach them to be right about themselves as citizens, one to another, you add to the strength of our civil order.

Nothing that is good is ever lost. For all good things contain in them something that is true about ourselves as human beings and all true things cleave to each other in the light - for as these are the things that are truly worth remembering, these are also the things that angels remember, that God does not forget.

So strive to always fulfill what good God places before your heart. Do not cling to evil things nor be influenced by it.

The peace process walks on two fronts - nation to nation and state to state. I am speaking this to you as part of the nation.

It would be a hollow victory indeed to have peace on paper alone. Do not be discouraged. Break the rule of war (division) in your hearts and make the choice to shed away the darkness forever.

Be generous in this way, my nation Philippines, and we shall not fail to see the morning dawn upon this Land of Promise.

---<--@

An Abrahamic Prayer:

LORD God, We humbly implore Thee: help all of Thy Muslims, help all of Thy Jews, help all of Thy Christians, help us in all Thy nations, dear God. Help us to find each other in the dark.

Incline each our hearts unto Thee, O LORD, our one True Light. Refresh our spirits. May we be as a people after Thy own Heart, O LORD, all Thy numberless stars, guided by the light of Thy peace and blessed by Thy will of good for all Mankind.

Forsake us not, O LORD, lest we perish in the darkness. Fulfill in us that promise Thou swore to our Father Abraham, that promise Thou hast made of old, O LORD, that Thou shalt lead us ever onward, that Thou shalt guide us toward the building of a better world for all Thy nations.

By the light of Thy own faithfulness, O LORD, bind us together in the unity of Thy own Truth. Establish Thy Holy Presence in our hearts as a revelation upon the nations, that Thou art God, O LORD, He Who is, the LORD and let this be as the dawning of Thy glory upon the earth.

AMEN.

---<--@

Serviam (Serve): This is what is meant by the last will be first and the first will be last.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Angelo Reyes (19450317 - 20110208) via con Dios.

Are we not all Filipinos? This is the bottom line: We have lost one of our own.

However which way we are to receive his passing away, we are still the lonelier now for it and for this I am grieved.

Nation-State

20101225

The Pain of Remembrance

THERE IS A REQUIREMENT FOR US TO SUCCEED, O my nation. There is an expectation under heaven for our one Republic of the Philippines to emerge from the stagnation of our not knowing. We have in a sense been a nation held in reserve.

Indeed, my fellow Filipino compatriots, our history seems to us wounded but the pain of past things have denied us nothing. All our past travails can not exhaust the virtues of our Republic undertaking. The long memory of our colonial past can take nothing away from the goodness of our people. In fact, these trials only serve to increase our hopes together.

The hopes of our nation is held in trust by our merits. It is not evil that sustains the truth of our belonging together. Let us never forget: We are because there is merit in our people. We are not because there is so much darkness in our midst. Our nationhood is an invincible reality sustained by the nobility of the lineages of our generations. Its inspiration comes from the virtues of all our heroes, least to great, known and known to God alone. So let us forsake all bitterness. We are not because there is so much darkness. It was never about the darkness. For we are not of the darkness. We are because we are a good people and a nation called to the light.

Our sense of national sufficiency draws its certainty from an abiding sense of unity. This unity is sustained by the concentrated strength of our common identity. All nations proceed from this self-cognizant sense of self. It is what gathers all its generations together into one lineage. It is what guards its timeless remembrances from the darkness of all things passing away into the gravity of the oblivion of everything that was not meant to be. The darkness of the void. This darkness dilutes the spirit of our being Filipino. It distracts us from the truth that we are in ourselves one whole sky; that we have a place in the greater scheme of things; that we are a nation distinct but not apart from the one family of the nations of Mankind.

Therefore, O my nation, let us come out of our despairing and begin believing again in ourselves as ourselves. Our nation exists not because there is evil in our midst. These times indeed may be dark. But if we come to a remembrance of ourselves and ascend with the ascent of the truth, the darkness will surely wane and we will find that the skies above our souls is so full of stars. For we are in all our nations as numerous stars spread upon the night sky. Stars that wills to shine all the more brightly in the darkness. Stars that guide together towards that promised dawn.

The pain we feel in our history is not a wound inflicted by the sword of other nations. No nation truly exists for war. The terrible history of our world makes this truth clear. Peace is the craft of all nations. And the season for peace is now. The weight of the last two thousand years (time, times) have fallen upon our poor world. But it is not a burden of judgment. For if it were, would any nation survive? It is a burden of expectation. We have a chance to open the door to a better world. The choice it offers all human hearts is peace (half-a-time). This peace is not an absence of conflict. It is not a surrender to the darkness. This peace is the presence of truth in the heart. It leads to an understanding of the order and purpose of greater things. And our place in the greater scheme of things. This peace is a path that leads away from the darkness of these times. It gives hearts rest. It returns nations to the path of victory.

The pain we feel in our history is a wounding wrought by the sword of our own nation biting against the darkness laying siege to our memory. It is the pain of our coming to terms with the calling of the present times. We should no longer fear this pain. It is not the mark of a defeated people. It is not a cause for despair. Neither is it a reason for hatred. It is the pain of our becoming alive to the memory of our people. Through it we shall come to understand the peace of our belongings with each other. Therefore, we must learn to confront it to find the truth of ourselves again.

We have been as a promise held back and a nation called to the labor of the times. This labor is a labor of peace. War has wounded the life of our nations. The darkness of war has obscured the remembrances of its peoples. Our world is in peril of failing. But there is yet sufficient strength left to overcome the evil of these present times. For this is the favorable season for peace. Our time is now.

The healing of our nations depends on each of us as individuals. But the healing of our poor world depends on the vitality of our nations. We only have to come to complete our own remembrances. We only have to begin from ourselves. It all begins with a choice to forsake war and embrace peace. This peace is the present hope of all nations. It is the path that leads us away from the darkness of the times. It is the key that opens the door into the promises of the new age. This peace is our hope as well.

We have not been a nation held in ignorance. We did not choose to willfully ignore the truth of our nationhood. It was something that was kept for us - by purposes greater than ourselves. We have been as a people asleep. And now we come to the task at hand fresh in spirit, our pain is not a pain of exhaustion. Our sacred remembrances of ourselves were kept for us by the timeless guardian that keeps vigil over our nation. It was never a thing that was lost.

We are a nation preserved by our peace. And so it is by this same virtue that we shall come to terms with our not knowing. We shall come to know peace - the angel we know but do not know. To remind each of us that our history is a reality that is continually won for us by the love that works to gathers us all together. And it leads us all to a destiny that can never be undone by any nation other than ourselves.

We must come to terms with our not knowing. God has remembered for us our hopes. And now we stir for a remembrance of ourselves. Many of our fellow Filipinos have begun to seek for the truth of our nationhood. We have begun to confront the pain of our not knowing. We have begun to awaken to who we truly are. We have begun to find ourselves again...

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Merry Christmas!

Peace among the nations.

Good will to all men and women of peace.

...from star to star, one whole sky.

The Longest Night

The day once forsaken shatters into night -
Light turns into darkness.

And the night can not get much darker.

But the darkness itself
once the light of day is forgotten
and the hearts of the children of Mankind
is overtaken by the emptiness,
amidst the long march of exile time,
can deepen into madness -

Hurling into the gravity of oblivion
the void that once was -
the nations of our needful Mankind.
---<--@


The Rise of Wormwood