On Lifting the Moratorium on Capital Punishment in this Republic

I am not against the death penalty. I am against the death penalty being abused. 

I believe there are times when the imposition of capital punishment becomes necessary in the ordinary pursuit of justice so that the severity of the punishment meets the malice and gravity of the crime.

I also believe the guilt of executing one innocent person can not be wiped away by executing ten more who are guilty.

In all criminal cases, this guilt takes on the character of community so my opinion is this: We, the people, should try and ponder on this more carefully. For the question is not an easy one:

Were the Republic to lift the moratorium on capital punishment, is our justice system ready?

There are five pillars to this justice system.

All five pillars form one synergistic whole. But the center-most pillar in my view is the people. 

Our national communities being one of these pillars - are we, the people, ready? 

The other four pillars of our justice system are as follows: (1) our courts system, (2) our police service, (3) our state's attorneys, and (4) our state reformatory system.

All of them draw their necessary virtues from the character of our peoplehood.

Let us look at how we judge and accuse each other everyday - how rash and how harsh we can get... How many or how few the times do we choose to actively preserve each other's honor and recognize each other's dignity as something of equal and precious value.

Let us look at in-built social prejudices: The provincialisms and other chauvinist excesses that linger on within our selves. For these things - were we to serve the ideals of the justice we, the people, commonly desire - must all be considered carefully.

Let us work to rid ourselves of these... As for my own part, I continue to actively work to remove these harmful preconceived notions from myself as well.

Also, look at how some people here, her own compatriots - react to the case of Mary Jane Veloso. I have a lot of admiration for Mary Jane. For her detractors here in our own Country - so very little. They react like they don't think. Like they worship law. 

For these are safeguards against abuse of the law. Indeed, a good and well-regulated populace is better than any law. Good judgment naturally supports a sound justice.

We should be citizens first in this Republic after all and politicians last. Are we?

In any case, the fact that there is a moratorium on capital punishment means that the death penalty is not off the table and it never was.
---<--@

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.
---<--@

Our Peace Process at the wake of Mamasapano

Trying times bring out the best and the worst in people and these are trying times indeed...

There seems a lot of opinions out there as regards the peace process. As I too am committed to the peace process, let me express some of my own.

The peace we want to accomplish through the peace process must ultimately be a human peace; the justice of this peace in its ideal form being a restoration of our unity as a human community.

To me, a "human peace" is simply one that restores dignity to the life of a community and since the peace that we are negotiating across the board is a national proposition - this peace must be capable of restoring dignity to the life of all our communities in the nation - across the Republic of the Philippines.

Will the peace in Mindanao affect things in Batanes? Of course, it must! A human peace is one that is able to provide for the human needs of a community. As a Republic, we are this community, this one house!

To do justice to the temporal house of the one Filipino nation is to make it one as our soul is one. To remain in our souls divided in war is to choose as a nation to remain in a state of spiritual injustice.

The essence of our civics is to do unto each other good. 

For in this Country, we all must be free and unafraid to do good to our fellow Filipino.

A human peace allows us the space, across our generations, to preserve both our freedom and our hope, in all things good and worthwhile to and for the Filipino... To desire this peace, to me, is therefore, always a good thing. For it shelters and protects our national communities from war (often in more ways than one).

What happened?

From the Nation to the State, we have to introduce words to articulate something true about ourselves and, my brothers and sisters, words always exclude. Indeed, words both limit and exclude. Therefore, peace as its human expression may be intensely political - most especially if our remembrances about it as a nation are not yet as mature.

Observe however, how a lot of Filipinos think war is not the answer - that is good. It means the spirit of our memory is being restored unto us... we just have to articulate it properly in the State.

The BBL is one such proposed articulation of how we may as one Filipino nation be restored to the unity of our peace. It is certainly not a perfect document. I myself have several things I should like to be able to clarify about it.

The BBL is a result of a long process... One should at least respect the hope that is invested in this document which is a hope for peace; a hope that if expressed correctly in the State may never go wrong.

I am NOT for war. Indeed, I am absolutely against any forms of "all-out war" - in any place, at any time. I am definitely for the peace - in particular here in our Philippines.

However, I must accept the path unto the threshold of this peace is political. Also, that the politics of a peace process will not readily confer justice in the temporal sense but initially serve to deflect the onset of more evil days. In Syria and the Ukraine, this for me is also true.

What justice we may work out shall be the justice of our sincerity in desiring peace and desiring peace absolutely - with a maturity of remembrance.

In general, the goal of our local peace process is to restore spiritual justice to the Philippine State that the State may then proceed to bestow temporal justice in behalf of all its citizens.

Justice in its fullness we can not deny ourselves. 

Our nation has a responsibility to possess in its soul an account to God of all human life. 

This means as citizens, we are responsible both for and to the memory of all Filipinos the Providence of God hath vouchsafed to  be born into our nationhood - through a living and present account of each and every single one of our names. This is our common debt of remembrance to God and Country, a burden of Justice which is part of our responsible Liberty.

We can not remember them all singly but as a nation we must remember them all fully.

And through a memory of their lives and sacrifices - live! Indeed, prosper and live! This "live" is the essence of our "mabuhay" which exhorts us to live the memory - therefore, long live the memory!

Maturity of remembrance understands the "intrinsic value" of each and every human life and detests war for what it is, understanding peace. 

A State that is fully accepting of peace in spirit proceeds from this truth not so much with law but with liberty. However, as we are wounded by so much internal strife, we need a cast to bind our bones to make them whole and strong again... We may liken the provision that establishes the CAR and the ARMM as such a cast. If the cast is not working, maybe it needs remolding.

Such is our quest for peace here in our Country...

We do not seek a perfect peace. It is impossible to attain peace in its perfection in this world at its state. But we may anchor our peace upon principles timeless and absolute and live its lineage unto truth and the victory of the Truth.

Our temporal dominion as a Republic here in this world may never be as perfect as our loves desire but if in our hearts we understand how we are united as one national community and if in our communities we know how we may live this unity and the hope of this unity in freedom... I think we all will be well.

Peace making involves trust. This means accepting risks. These risks are the same risks we normally subject our nation to when we choose to default to war and distrust.

Peace is an enlightened choice not to accept the status quo of this world and one we make as a nation - because we finally understand.

What does this mean? 

When we speak of the peace process, sincerity above all matters most of all.

Even before the politics of everything, I think when we seek peace we must seek peace absolutely. 

Appeasement of war bring more war and doing things in behalf of peace short of a true desire for peace is harmful simply because it is untrue... For the peace we all hope to establish among ourselves shall ultimately be tested by its fruits... a peace for all Filipinos.

Let us review in spirit the peace we are after. Let us have these reference points from each shore before we wade into deeper water... that the bridges we may seek to build - together this time - may be strong and straight and nevermore skewed.

The rest we shall attend to as things unfold... for we are creatures caught up in time after all... change is our right and our responsibility. 

Let us be patient. Let us be understanding. Let us be above all, firm.

Peace is over war. For war is not for always. But unity is eternal.

God love the Philippines. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

In the midst of all of these, in this Lenten season, I should like to remind my fellow Filipino Catholics to come back to a meditation on the Year of the Poor which is this year, 2015.

Let us work and pray that the Holy Spirit this year carry our nation forth into waters safer and vistas brighter.

A little personal anecdote:

Smile the Pope Francis smile: When I look at how our Holy Father smiles, I feel the warmth - the gold of the smile! One of the things I can not forget about our Holy Father is his smile. Isn't smiling like this a form of charity?

We love you Holy Father Francis!

Justice for Jennifer

Politics and justice do not usually mix well. The courts of our justice system insulates itself from public sentiment for a reason.

Justice is not a spectrum. It is a compass direction that must always point to true north. Public sentiment always represents a much larger expression than this.

Politics on the other hand is usually served by tides of public sentiment and public sentiment only insofar as the public passion is at its flood.

Both serve as distinctive expressions of the enduring life of our national values. Apart, they are clear. But taken together, they represent a false choice.

The cause of justice for Jennifer should prepare itself for a difficult road ahead.

Because when politics and justice mix, it is often at the expense of the other. Which one depends on who is left believing and holding on at the turn of the tide.

I am for equal justice before the law.

No one deserves to be murdered in the way she was murdered.

This is a human being, let us remember - with human struggles, human hopes, human connections, and a citizenship which causes her to belong equally and equitably with all other citizens in our Republic. One could say the same of Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton.

All of these are equal considerations.

The unfortunate thing is that, due to the inescapable weight of larger issues beyond the context of this case, these individually human considerations might have inadvertently taken on a political spin.

Due process, custody and safety, correctional jurisdiction are inherently non-political issues. They belong to a sovereignty (of being) that is universally exclusive and imiscible to States.

To be honest, I am not privy to the details of the issue. I do not think this is a hate crime though. It might be more a crime of passion. There are certainly things that can and must be done to prevent and deter crimes like this from happening again in the future.

I do not think this must affect our friendship and treaty obligations with the United States. I am thinking much more of those US citizens who live in friendship with our people than with the politics of the matter here.

However, if we do not streamline and clarify the process of expediting justice in cases such as these, it might affect the overall effectiveness of our being able to carry it out as kindred Countries. Defense being always a matter carried out in the absolute.

We are both a democracy and should understand the weight of public sentiment and the vitality of national memory. Our governments alone can not sustain the potency of a national friendship and treaties alone can not effect a truly common defense of this vital friendship.

Good will must be displayed in the treatment of this case on both sides.

My sincerest sympathy goes out to the family and the friends of Jennifer Laude. It would be remiss of me not to extend my condolences to the bereaved - to those loved ones she left behind in our care.

May her soul find the peace that this world was not able or willing to offer her. May she find her way back to the God Who loves us all and gives us hope for our humanity.

Jennifer Laude is a victim. This is the bottom line. Let us not make more victims in her name.

Justice must be done.
---<--@

20141026: Apparently, there exists two other concurrent cases involving the murder of a transgender individual. When I began ruminating about the fate of Jennifer Laude, the first question that came to my mind was, "what was primary will driving the public outcry, the core sentiment as it were at the center of the outcry?"

Is it because Laude is a member of the LGBT minority sheltering under our Republic peace or is it because the alleged perpetrator just so happens to be a serving member of the US Armed Forces?

I was afraid it shall be the latter because it proves that much of the outcry is political - clamoring for an issue more than the human issue we should be dealing about in the immediate.

I understand Susselbeck is outraged. I do not wish to expound on his morality here. I sympathize with his loss of an intimate personal connection. He led one of  the protests in Aguinaldo, got into an unfortunate scuffle with one of our soldiers, apologized, and is now on his way back to Germany.

Should we make him into a persona non grata? I think we should have clearer guidelines on that too. This however, is a matter for our lawmakers and policy innovators.

Salutation #201

I know you, Genocide. I know your face.
You are neither from heaven nor from this earth.

You are an abomination.

You shall never find peace with my soul and, God-helping, never ever will.

Nor shall you find in my nation through me, a welcome and nurturing host.

I never loved you.
Never.

Bergen Belsen

(Murder by Nation)

Genocide.

Let us think about Genocide.

Let us think about Genocide not as one who is ill
but as one who does not wish to become ill.

What is different about Genocide?

Murder is the willful taking of the life of another human being by another human being.
Alone or with others, murder is the crime of murderers.

Mass murder is the willful taking of the lives of other human beings by another human being.
Alone or with others, mass murder is a crime of mass murderers.

Before the Justice of God and the Nations, each murder is a sin of commission.

Each murder is a crime. Each crime is a scandal.

Each transgression an individual act of moral and physical evil perpetrated by individuals against the life of its victims and against the life of their human communities.

With every life taken, what once is can no longer be.

It is a grief the community must bear with compassion most especially with those closest in affinity with the one willfully taken away from our midst before his or her time.

With every life stolen, nations suffer a burden of the loss.

It is a burden the community must understand and remember not with vengeance or hate but have recourse to themselves and their betterment before the Justice of God and the Nations.

- selah -

Genocide makes an entire people become one in the act of murder.
It is hideous. It is murder on a wholesale basis. Murder by nation.

Before the Justice of God and the Nations, Genocide is an act of omission.

It is never random. Its occurrences never happen by accident.
It is always by design. It comes always by premeditation.

Long in thought.

Recall to mind the 4th Rupture: Man-Man.

Cain withheld from Abel his peace
and the grace of good will fled his soul. 

Thus did he see in his brother
the image of the enemy of creation. 

Thus did he slay his own kin. 

Thus did war
from the heart of Man
gain entrance into the human realm. 

Thus did Cain suffer to become a fugitive to his own heart. 

Thus did the earth became restless with the blood of Abel.

Thus did the proceeding generations suffer
the closing of heaven above the earth.

This closing is an exterior spiritual darkness. 

It is a darkness nations must account for together through the interior light of the right remembrance.

Evil become a banality where this darkness is allowed to enter into the precincts of the citizen in the self.

Where the Burden of Justice is too great and its weight of darkness lay heavy upon the soul of a people, where our Debt of Remembrance is largely forgot, Genocide creeps in through false captains to corrupt the spirit of a people.

Through omission and through shortness of days, Genocide soon becomes an attitude in the people.

And readies itself to become unleashed to make further war upon the children of Mankind.
---<--@

Remember again and again, never ever forget.

Cry in the Dark

It is terrible to recall
what we have done to each other
in the name of human progress.

More terrible still,
despite all the many atrocities
and the slaughter of so many of our innocents
   (unto whom we all did belong forever
   as citizens and as human beings to each other)
whose dignity and particular good we all did despise
and continue to do so, in continuing to so freely carry out
the very same acts that in spirit
committed to murder them -
the common fruit of so many of their gifts
we now suffer to deny ourselves
and continue to suffer to deny to ourselves
and to our common posterity -
in the Nation.

It is painful to see
that we have not gained a thing,
for their loss.

That we have forsaken so much
for not an iota of good.

And continue to do so
far, far into the night,
into a night without a twilight -
unto a place where the night itself
can not get any more darker than it is,
where the darkness may only deepen into madness,
comprehending not itself dark -
but light.

How much pain must we endure?

How much can we endure
before the pain itself our spirit forsake?

How many lives will it take to teach us humility?

How much darkness
must we call upon ourselves
to allow us to realize
all this blindness is sheer and utter madness;
that we are human after all - and that -
it is our own inhumanity to ourselves that is killing us all -
as a species of living soul entrusted by God
to shepherd the life of the earth!

For
is it not madness that - as living souls,
we did intend to carry out our own death
and bring about upon our own living world,
a swift and final desolation?

When will lukewarm hearts in the Nation arise as the day,
to a fierce and burning longing for Thy Peace?
When, O God of Peace...

It is terrible to know what we have forgotten - that -
at times, when my own remembrances of these things come to me,
I do not know what is more painful, to recall them
or to forget them.

Maybe I do not want to know anymore.
---<--@

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."

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

Yet we remember them in their incomplete portraits.

We remember the absence. We remember the distant greatness.

We remember the abruptness of his death. And its untimely nature did accept.

We remember the missing pieces of his life and times. Yet linger on - in knowledge bereft.

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed! 
To the National Memory - and the heritage of Mankind -
till the end of the Age, and the last fading away upon this World,
when the Firmament beginning again - comes full circle - for All.
   

Yet t'is a solemn Trust seemingly
most effectively expressed - in the Nation

   (as a memory of something - of something that is repressed -

   ever like the constant haze that surrounded his term in those times,

   so full of unknowing, and fearfully ignorant about its own uncertainties 

   born of unforgotten moments - that seem to have waned - in the distance

   retreating somehow - uncomfortably so - in the distance - just outside of reach)

as - its profound and quiet absence - of things mostly now hidden yet forever bright!

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - is - 

by his own greatness in the National Remembrance 

mostly remembered by the charisma of his Presidency.

Indeed there exists in the Nation these days,

- a prevailing nostalgia about this very charisma -

acutely felt - in the absence of an engaged civic spirit -

which was the enlightened contribution of his own personage, 

and the very soul of his own devotion to the sacred trust of the Nation:

Enlightenment of the National Spirit was the Vision of his Camelot.

Yet the summits of JFK's legacy 

seem perpetually founded on tumults;

his term established in the midst of War 

seems only remembered by its passing away;

the common remembrance of JFK - seemingly -

one to be embraced like his absence, in the silence...

- selah -

The dilemma is in the waiting.

For in the waiting, we await for nothing.

For a future of completeness - we can not envision -

either by their wholes or through their complementary parts

without accepting what we may at present comprehend 

about the horizons of that one tomorrow, today.

The 35th President has bequeathed to his Nation his legacy!

And it can not be more complete to God than the sacrifice he freely gave.

For though all was not perfect - all was given perfectly - for God and Country.

So may he and his times - under this season of Sky -

be remembered in the Light of the right Remembrance

and in the Spirit of the Nation unto whom JFK and his family 

dedicated each of their life's callings to serve and to love faithfully 

be no longer in our memory bound to the dilemma - of the longing 

and of the not holding on - of the having and the not knowing it.

And so the tragedy in the life of the 35th President 

should not permeate as a taint upon his solemn memory;

the misgivings and failings that surround the murder of his person

and the years that were fallen away from the Nation by its painful loss 

can not be held to account together - as if Justice and Memory were one -

for the certainty of the vindication of Justice is a realm that is separate and distinct 

from the necessary honoring of the Remembrances that God requires of All.

None of those failings were the failings of the 35th President.

And to confuse them with each other - is a failure to render account -

of a life that was taken before its promise was fully realized in the Nation -

that all Citizens exist for each other and each other for God and for Country

and that to give to Country what Country seeks is also to give to one's self

what happiness was ever so diligently promised as this Nation's pursuit.

It was his nearness to the common people that inspired his strength.

It is a nearness that lives on - in younger hopes that inspire new strength

that within each heart - is felt in the silence - as a warmth and a glow.

Let the nostalgia fade away into a fullness of national embrace!

And let our pining for the Camelot that once seemed lost - fully become -

like a prayer for better days - shining aright again with a newness of hope!

That ever like the undying Flame that with Vigilance stands over JFK's memory,
we may recognize what was lost to our observance - all this time... as the warmth of his life;
that the pain of its own longing in the Nation's hearts may no longer consume us with trepidation 

and no longer seek in our souls to consume our spirit with many concerns - beyond its brightness -
that we may let go of the past and look again to future things, with much love - here - now, today. 

Let us begin.

---<--@

I do not know who murdered JFK. What I know is that his life and legacy was cut short by its crime. And an entire Nation was upon its intricacies mislead by a false allure into a lingering grief, unable to make their peace with the Remembrance of a remarkable Presidency and far too long burdened by this debt.

Justice is not Remembrance and indeed, it must be said
- the Certainty of Justice and the Burden of Justice are two distinct principles,
the former is a Pledge undertaken by God, and the latter, a command issued by Him
for all Nations to make a living and present account of all human life - to the last hair on their heads - 
that we may work together to alleviate among ourselves this common Burden of Justice
by timely payments made before God and the Assembly of each and every Nation
standing before His Throne in Eternity - against this Debt of Remembrance.

Where is thy brother, Abel?

To a man with no sense of Remembrance, one hundred people murdered in war and one million people murdered in war makes no difference.

But to those who know of Sacred Remembrance - to save one life is to save all of Mankind.



The first time
Man ever saw in himself
the form of the Enemy was
when Cain slew his own brother, Abel.

This primordial sin of mortal division
that passing through the door of the heart of Cain
unleashed the adversarial spirit of the Enemy of all Nations
and upon our world, resulted in the first taking of a human life
marked the advent of War and the first loss of an innocent soul
as both violent conflict and murder were realized upon our world -
at the very same moment - for truly they are synonymous to each other.

Beloved Starshine -
the Soul of every single Man
when they are each endowed by God
makes fully human - and - fully complete
the seed of corporeal life that is fruit and blessing
of the consummation of the love of Woman and Man
wrought within the freedom of their Sacred Union in Marriage
at the very moment of its conception - to become a Living Soul -
a complete human being - united in body, soul, and spirit -

and as such, contains within it's being all the good and the promise 

that the LORD hath fully intended for that person to be and to become
in time, emerging upon the earth, a wonder and a work of completion
in the freedom of the Truth - for the greater purposes of God -

for Man is a creature of the becoming - a being invested in hope!

(Why do you think, Starshine, human parents plan ahead for their child?
God being Parent to His Children, also plan for their success - as is His right.)

So when God asked Cain, "where is thy brother, Abel?"
The LORD was not asking Cain about the whereabouts of his brother.
Indeed, God already fully knows where Abel went, for - in being with Him
the LORD asked of Cain where the life - the entire life - of his brother went
that he may come to realize the gravity of his sin - for all that Abel was - cried up
to the LORD from the ground and his blood wept for all the good that shall never be.

- selah -

A sapling felled
at the beginning its life will no longer yield it's fruits -
and yet these fruits shall still be required of us by the Master of Harvest
we shall then produce them by the improvements we make unto ourselves -
that - each of us - may hope to yield more for the Master of Harvest
but most of all, by the improvements we undertake to create in our communities -
that - all of us - may hope to yield more for the Master of Harvest
and by our Remembrance receive the blessings of His everlasting Peace
and by our God's faithfulness and mercy - succeed!
And that our joy may be full forever.

We wonder why the world is so troublesome and lacking in fruit...
How many trees have we lost since the beginning of our long march into Exile?

How many times
have the LORD asked our Nations
the same question he asked Cain at the advent of War?

And how did we respond?

- selah -

Every Nation of the Children of Mankind
are charged with a constant Remembrance of these things,
that we may together render faithful account of each human life
All in behalf of each other - all for the life of visible creation
with a Book of Memory, and a Burden of Justice to carry
and a Sword to guard - for each of thee - thy every generation well
and to charge them all - to remember always - from the very beginning
at the East Gate of faded Eden - the way of our return to an Eden rebuilt -
their constant Debt of Remembrance - to God and to each other -
that each is a keeper to another, citizens and human beings -
so that by each their labors, these thy generations may soon undertake
in behalf of each other - and - in peace with all other Nations
to make each their Soul of Country in spirit - ever brighter
by each their degrees of Love and Remembrance
and its every Ascent unto completion of All Country
in Ages together - ever more certain.
---<--@

Farewell to Promise

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

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

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

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

This is not remembrance but the corruption of it.

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

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

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

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

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

Starshine, peace is not the mere absence of war 

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

sitting dreamily on lazy, white clouds... 

For peace is a mighty presence - 

'tis in all that is worth keeping and defending 

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

'tis the presence of a spirit that is unafraid

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

Salutation #182

None of the Seraphs have joined with Satan in his War
and the LORD has, prior to the time of the Children
(which are these latter-day times, beloved of God),
utterly destroyed all evil and fallen Principalities
in the Great Deluge for our good behalf.

So we are
in our every belonging preserved
by Love and Remembrance...

(Love and Remembrance)

Love and Remembrance
when each their truths are realized -
breaks upon thy heart, darlingest Starshine,
clear as the dawn and draw thy spirit decisively
in great ascending motions - leading thee steadfastly
forth and away from the midnight darkness...

For
Love and Remembrance
once realized by thy seeking soul - as truth in the heart
have no parallel midnight - the advent of each of their realities
once it has risen in the horizon of thy mind - separate themselves cleanly
as light is from darkness and leave no trace of shadow nor confusion
to the being and thought of any Man as to which Twilight path
leads to the Morning.

Glory to God therefore, all ye Nations,
sing to the LORD a song of love and thanksgiving;
a hymn of adoration from thy hearts, O Children of Mankind
for the wonder our God has done for us!
---<--@

Lucifer with all his wit,
was not able to convince and commit,
a single Seraph to his fight
for who could make love itself choose
to burn for anything else
but the one Beloved.

Thus, save for his lies,
none can love the Devil true...

But
when God utters
a Word of the Truth,
all hearts upon all the earth
and across all of heaven above
come aflame with Love.
---<--@


To not be afraid, love. 
To not be ashamed, remember.

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 #173

Wings that work
are wings that lift - aloft -
they fly not merely
because they can, or they must;
they fly because
they carry something that belong
to the skies!



(Burden of Justice)

A nation's burden of justice - is -
all its unaccounted for losses
   (these losses being all that was given us
   that was taken by force from among our midst)
measured in terms of individual human life
each in their own distinct and unrepeatable persons,
each with their own particular names known to the LORD,
the God Who commanded all nations to keep them all,
ever in their entirety, each in spirit preserved
in the sacred remembrance of every nation of the children of Mankind
as a debt of remembrance owed to the God of all life - and -
as a work of peace to be kept - in common trust -
on behalf of all the life of living creation itself.

To each nation God has provided a right of ascent,
a way through which a nation may attain to a knowledge of itself
   (being a way of our returning from the exile darkness -
   in spirit - through - the easternmost gate of faded Eden)
and to every nation there is only one right of ascent.

It is therefore crucial
especially in these present times
that every nation know - as well as -
understand the (1) truth that abides within itself;
   (in general, that every nation is distinct yet the same;
   that every nation though it may long for many things long for only one thing;
   that though the spirit of war marches to threaten,
      in every time, place, and in every age, the peace of all nations,
      that every nation exists for the good and only for the good;
   that every nation exists for the other and that, in the economy of grace,
      there is no other but the self alone;)
and (2) that the power of this ascent is directly affected
in proportion to every nation's burden of justice
and that the weight of this necessary burden
is carried by all of our citizens,
   (each of us according to the measure
   by which we receive them from the Providence of God)
to be shared - as a common labor of peace - across all our generations,
according to our national debt of remembrance -
   (so that it may be heavy - the people choose to forget their hope -
   or it may be light - the people choose to take responsibility for their hope.)

Failure to responsibly carry
this burden of justice - in a nation -
is failure itself.

For a nation overtook by the darkness
is no longer itself.

And every spirit of Country
that has become utterly corrupted
by the adversarial nature
of the enemy of all nations
shall perish forever
from the earth!
---<--@

Salutation #125

JUSTICE would seem as love
to those who are familiar with her
but to those whose hearts
are far away from her,
Justice is their chief terror.
---<--@


Justice with Virtue and Vice

(The 3rd Cause: The Cause of Justice - Harmony)

TWO THINGS 

the heart of our Mankind needs:

Love and Justice.

- selah -

The original state of Man
is one of unadulterated goodness.

In this original state,
Man knew neither good nor evil
but is wholly submissive
to the nurture and protection
of God, his Creator.

In this original state,
the promise (human potential) of Man
is completely in harmony with his freedom
and his being (human dignity)
both in body and in soul
constantly preserved
by the golden Presence of the LORD,
his Eternal Provider and Holy Sustainer,
in and across all of living creation,
whether seen or unseen.

 (Truly,
 an unimaginable wonder indeed!)

The root 

of all that is evil
(i.e. the source of its mystery
as it is experienced in the visible world)
lies in the apprehension in our understanding
of a wholly spiritual, completely true,
and therefore, symbolic (or veiled) truth - 

as regards Man's abrupt departure (exile)
from this original state
since that most primordial of evil
was a sin that was inflicted
upon Man through woman*
(and from Man and woman*
unto all of our lineages to the last)
by the sin of another.

   (*The vulnerability of woman - here -

   is equally a consequence of the failure of man.

   Neglect of this first principle
   is a constant source of suffering in every age
   for it is the spirit of division that insists on parting the fault
   and therefore, disowning the peace the LORD
   hath intended between man (Adam) and woman (Eve)
   undoing the harmonious and complimentary order
   God hath placed between male and female.

   Furthermore,
   the woman spoken by here
   is not the Woman of later revelation,
   clothed with the Sun, a Lady with 12 stars -

   the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Savior of Mankind.)

For the fall of Man
- was an act initiated -
by the Serpent of Eden;
the Devil, Satan - Lucifer -

who is now and forever
the enemy of All.

- selah -

Unto Man was offered
a knowledge to command All things;
a knowledge over and beyond God Himself
so that Man might become like God
and therefore, apart from Him.

By this lie Man was deceived.

Because none
may offer this knowledge
but the LORD, 

God and God alone!

And no creature
whether in heaven or on earth
may ask this of the LORD 

without sin!

For the Serpent offered Man
- knowledge of God Himself!

It was this lie
that caused Man to break away
from his original lineage
of life and of light.

It was this evil 

that have caused 

the one heart of Man
- to become divided -
necessitating his departure
from this original state.

Man 

(and the children of Mankind) 

came into exile grief
and time itself was torn asunder.

Heaven was grieved
and its open gates was shut
at the autumnal dusk of faded Eden.

So began - the long march -
of the nations (of the children) of Mankind.

- selah -

Now,
that which caused this departure
was disobedience of which Man is guilty.

But that which caused this disobedience
was not of Man: It was of the Serpent.

Justice is a result of this first principle.

And the Creative Ideal
even as it is perceived - in exile time -
(as if looking through a glass, darkly;
obscured and eclipsed, as it were,
by both [1] the veil of time
and [2] the presence of sin
- at the very heart -
of the one habitation of Man)
is an expression
of this original state (of Man).

It is

the timeless expression
of the one, absolute Good
- the ideal Peace -
longed for - in and by - 

every human heart.

The original destiny
of all the nations of Mankind
- long lost -
yet still waiting to be found
and offered by God - continuously -
as a gratuitous outpouring of grace
(wrought by the Atonement of Jesus Christ)
to those who have ears able to listen 
and hearts willing to receive.

It is as an unspoken promise
understood by the children of all Mankind
being written in each our hearts
and so duly expressed
in the Ideals of the States (Constitutions, Laws)
that govern the nations
to whom this Creative Ideal
is entrusted by God (our Father)
and continually revealed - in time -
by His Providence

on earth.

Justice primarily concerns itself
with this Creative Ideal.

For what concerns Justice is 

the restoration of Man.

Therefore,
all meritorious acts of Justice
as a virtue - must be that -
which serves to restore Man
to (a vision of) this original state
(being continually revealed
unto every generation, and unto every nation
- by and through -
the Holy Spirit of the LORD).

- selah -

In this way,
Spiritual Justice
is a constant pursuit.

For Spiritual Justice
- must concern itself -
with the human community
as a growing, dynamic,
synergistic whole.

It is always vigilant.

It is always in motion.

It drives the juridical sciences
according to the needs of every good
in the context of the realities
of every present time.

What seeks to banish
the evils in human society;
what seeks to redress the legitimate grievances
- of the wholes - of all human communities;
what seeks to safeguard
the individual good and the common good
(in the context of each other);
what seeks to continually fulfill
the requirements of the Creative Ideal
as it is - currently expressed - 

in and by the hopes of every nation
and mandated through the ideals 

- vested and entrusted -
in each its Responsible States,
all of these are acts of Spiritual Justice.

It is what imparts force of truth
to the individual will to meaningfully defend and preserve
- through human institutions (the courts system),
the prevailing peace and the living order
of every civil (human) society.

From Spiritual Justice spring Temporal Justice.

Now,

Temporal Justice
is a remedy of law.

Its merits are derived
from the prevailing judgments
of a particular law court
which are always relative to the needs
of the present realities
it has been called to serve and redress.

Its proximity
to the realities of these needs - in time -
and its efficacy according to Spiritual Justice
is always underpinned by its own faithfulness
to the Creative Ideal.

Thus,
it is never anger
nor the spirit of revenge
that drives - forward and onward -
the Cause of Justice
but Justice itself!

- selah -

The relationship 

of the 3rd Cause to the 4th Cause
(Benignity, the Cause of Minorities)
is not incidental.

For what concerns Justice
is the total and absolute defense of the good
(conceived - as it were - 

as one and [at the same time] at-one, 

in and with itself, according to the Ideal Good, 

or the Highest Good, or [of] God
and understood, according to every present understanding, 

in the synergistic context of each other 

as an absolute whole [or as it really is in Eternity]).

Simply put,

Justice - promotes and protects - 

what is good.

It is Law
that seeks to bind
what evil there is
(specifically the Evil
in all evil things).
---<--@

The Circular Relationship of the Four Causes