When shall the future be...

When shall the future be... 

Corruption we can never banish entirely - we have to take man as he is. 

Our society ought not suffer its evils easily though. 

We should work to gain from these trying times, a vital tempering that shall steel our will of community. That corruption never again openly threaten our common labor of Country. 

The Filipino dream of freedom belong to all Filipinos. 

We will always behold this dream as if it were a future far away if our nation remains shackled by the many fears that hold us back. Our future is near as tomorrow once the Filipino can dream again. 

We should not fear to break out of old molds of thinking. We should not become comfortable with all too familiar pains. The ghosts of past things shall seem terrible to us indeed if we shall harden our hearts...

Nations have a right to be - forever. Therefore, every Country in our present world, properly established, expressed, and brought to fore in time, has a right to succeed. We must own what is ours.

We want better things for our nation. All things that better a nation ought always to last. If a thing is not such and after a while perishes, shall we call it a gain of happiness? Or a betrayal of it? 

Wealth to our community is enrichment - good and wholesome to the total being of man. Corruption and its propensity to multiply its sins against community is never a means to achieve such a wealth. Evil foundations shall never stand the test. Time itself shall pull its worthless idols down from this world. 

What we must dream and labor together to possess is the kind of riches that promises to profit our souls a happiness that is invincible. Material wealth yes. Most certainly! But the gain of its honorable pursuit as well. 

By the gain of virtues multiplied, the pursuit itself becomes a blessing unto every life's learning. We enable our citizens to become masters of their temporal possessions and therefore, captains of our national fortunes. 

Wages and salaries, benefits and allowances - everything that adds to every citizen's ability to move and to be - these are not survival options but economic necessities. 

It should not be such a hard decision to make - to increase the economic potential of the Filipino - IF the wealth we as a nation possess were to be established on the building up of good and abundant things that make our Country in the sight of Providence very good. 

But wealth born of the wrong things curse. It is naught but dust and earth in the end and shall leave for our generations nothing but bitterness and grief.

Our connections are human and valuable. Peace is the source of the national wealth.

Our citizenship in this Republic draws its sovereign reality from the strength of our connections with each other. How we esteem this sacred trust and how we honor our citizenship is one and the same duty. 

Betrayal of the public trust usually arises either indirectly through ignorance or directly through malice wrought against the sacred trust of our people. 

Simply put, our civic allegiances we profess to each other under God - through the Flag that rally our spirit unto the liberating work of our Country. 

From this we are emboldened and stand to gain much fortune. 

For the gaining of the earth for man is the original intention of our coming together as a nation. Before the fall it was, after exile it still is. 

---<--@

Salutation #175

Money is but a means to obtain wealth.

Brothers and sisters of the Promise -
if money and the mere count of all worldly things
were the ultimate end of our coming together into one nationhood,
we should realize - here and now - that we should be
the most unfortunate gathering of souls
in all of God's living creation.

For the devil has his crushing evil lies,
and the angels their quicksilver blue wings,
and the LORD, His glorious, golden Eternity -
But alas, my poor nation! we shall have nothing
if we do not learn, God helping, to multiply our means
not by selfishly obtaining for ourselves the mere number of their count
but by making - in behalf of the All of ourselves - even the merest of means count
so that every generation will have something that remains
to build upon and to hold dear.



(On Eagle's Wings)

Truly,
every nation has its wings
endowed to lift unto the sky of Heaven
the burdens of the earth-bound feet of Man.

But to do so,
We must realize that we, who are but one in our community,
should always look to the least, to the weakest, to the lowliest -
ever to the ones closest to the heavy and difficult ground of our earth
and know that we can not lift up our nationhood with its own wings to fly
IF we can not together uplift the lives of the poorest of the poor
in and amongst ourselves.

The power of our release from the gravity of our earth
we acquire from the presence of the poor - and we shall always have them -
(because the poor is, by measure of time as a whole, none other than the All of us)
for it is they - who are, at each moment, among the least among us - who give to us
- as a nation among nations - ever by the grace of the LORD, our King,
the constant opportunity to fly and to ascend to our completeness.

Remembering now the 4th Cause -
(which is the key to wealth generation in this new age
and the threshold that leads unto the other three Causes)
Indeed, within this Republic undertaking of Country
under heaven upon the earth - each of us -
who become rich becomes rich indeed
when we learn how to make each other rich
within a labor of Country borne ever aloft
by an economy of matter and grace.
---<--@

Salutation #168

Citizenship is in the soul - 'tis a seeking in the self -
an integral part of the blossoming of every human life.

So you breath it in your spirit, and you live it in your life
- you seek it like the motion of a love learning to love.

You long for it in yourself - until you are full for the truth -
until your belonging is absolute and your joy is complete.



(An Identity of Participation)

Citizen, participate -

(1) in the economic life of thy nation
(productivity, industry, and material prosperity)

   - be honest in your dealings with others
   - pay your taxes

(2) in the political life of thy nation
(responsible authority, meaningful order, and human purpose)
   - be fair in your dealings with others
   - properly exercise your right to vote

(3) in the spiritual life of thy nation
(virtue, meaning, and human felicity)
   - be willing to allow others to be happy
   - work to be happy

(4) in the social life of thy nation
(peace, justice, and human community)
   - be willing to lead and to be led
   - obey the law

BE all you can be for God and Country.
---<--@


Citizenship with Fidelity

Salutation #164

The real answer
to the question of poverty in our age
may not be more but BETTER forms of prosperity.



(The Question of Wealth)

Wealth,
darling Starshine -
what is it?

- selah -

"What is wealth?" -  beloved,
is a question we should each know
how to ask the citizen in each ourselves.

For the recognition of wealth -
its forms, orders of value, real purpose in time,
generation, preservation, conservation,
and ultimate possession -
is the central question being sought
(to be sufficiently grasped and understood)
by each our answering - in our own times and places -
the collective call of each our own undertaking of Country.

The answers - that each of us are -
whose completeness in the ascent - as a whole -
(like stars finding their way together
into every new morning of every new day
unto the completion of our Country)
drive forward the economy of our generations.

Indeed,
the singular - temporal - pre-occupation
of every nation (of the children of Mankind)
is how to adequately understand
the question of wealth.

Truly,
it is important to understand this question.

FOR
how one nation understands the Question
directs its timeless energies unto the answer...
even... precious starshine, all the way.
---<--@



Ask yourself:
is money - by itself -
wealth enough?

Money
can be good.

- BUT -

Money
can be bad.

Why?

Starshine,
what (or who) makes it so?
---<--@



Questions ask, answers answer.

A Nation's Prayer for Good Public Servants

Public service is a calling not an ambition.

Therefore, if the calling is present and the person freely responds and God blesses his or her decision, no one loses out - everybody wins!

So must we always pray for God to raise among our people, good public servants - shepherds after His own heart!



May God inspire in our hearts
a discerning love of the true shepherds
of the common people -

May the LORD cause us
to exhort and support them,
to recognize and to love them,
and to appoint them, wherever necessary,
in free and peaceful elections -

May the generous and good God, our Father,
deign it acceptable to enrich our national communities
with their vigilant and beneficent stewardship
in all levels and across all distinctions
within our one nation.

AMEN.
---<--@



It is said that one only receives the love one thinks one deserves. As a nation, my people, what kind of love do and can we reasonably and realistically expect from government?

In a democratic society, these expectations matter. For these expectations of ours inadvertently shape the custom and the norms that help or hinder the rise and the success of those who are in government to serve or to be served.

Those who expect corruption when and where it suits them in the citizenry provide those who are corrupt in government a means to be corrupt.

Those who expect excellence and all manner of praiseworthy things from our public servants in the citizenry provide those who are true in our government a means to remain so.

Those who do not know what to expect will likewise reap the same uncertainty for their lukewarmness and timidity of spirit in public participation.

Liberty is an exercise, not an excuse.

Lateral responsibility precedes horizontal authority.

Salutation #163

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution introduces to the people - equally engaged in that Republic undertaking of Country - the right (and the duty) to bear arms in the common defense of the nation.

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It underpins two essential concepts of American Constitutional Liberty - Freedom and The Common Defense (of Freedom) - concepts which must be well defined for its essence to prevail as truth in the will of the people.

(I recall to mind the US Army motto: "This we shall defend".)

For the bearing of those arms - in and by itself - does not guarantee the life of liberty. Indeed, it might prove to be the death of it.



(On the Bearing of Arms)

Do I believe in guns? No.
Do I believe in the necessity of guns? Yes.

Furthermore,
I believe that the loftiest vision of weaponry
and its development in our world is to make itself obsolete -
in time.

I believe the necessity of bearing arms
provide the means to finally and eventually surrender their utility -
in time.

   (In the last great age of war
   that culminated in the Cold War,
   the nations built and developed weapons
   without an ultimate purpose in mind and heart
   and therefore, mindlessly submitted themselves
   to the truth which is implicit in the nature
   of all weaponry - destruction.

   Weapons were developed
   and refined to such a fine degree
   so as to make it - entirely possible -
   to make our humanity utterly obsolete.

   Weaponry were made to be the ultimate means
   to our own final and complete destruction
   and not the other way around.)

- selah -

Do I love guns? No.
Do I love what guns defend? Yes -
Most certainly.

I believe the means and the resources - to develop -
as well as - the will to wield - weaponry is entrusted to the nations
because the dream in making these weapons is to make safe our world -
not to undo it.

And that only its virtuous use (in the defense)
will lead all Mankind to this greatest of all desired (temporal) ends -
a world where (short of the appointed time, known to God alone,
when heaven and earth are made into one), God-helping,
peace is the rule and - not anymore -
the exception.

- selah -



I believe in a local defense industry
infused with this ethos and professing this motto:

"Filipino arms for the primary defense of the one Filipino nation".
---<--@



Bedevil the gun! 

Let us fear it,
let us make it a thing of mystery,
let us pour all our blame on it -
let us not understand it, 
that we may lay ourselves prone
to higher forms of slavery.



"The gun has played a critical role in history. An Invention which has been praised and denounced, served hero and villain alike...

and carries with it moral responsibility.

To understand the gun is to better understand history."

- Tales of the Gun, a History Channel series

The Paradox of Power

Starshine, do you know the paradox of power?



The paradox of power is that in the final accounting of things, there is no such thing as power, only responsibility.

:::Think and Unlock:::

On Remembrance

Remembrance
is a commandment of God
of all human nations.

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

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

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

- selah -

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

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

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

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

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

- selah -

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

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

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

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

(produced 20110710)

Salutation #153

Prudent stewardship of the temporal order does not disincline the wings of the soul to flight for a rightful love of the things of the earth is one that does not diminish the appetite of the spirit for virtue and truth.

Material prosperity is not undesirable, materialism is. 

For materialism breeds greed and greed is the real dirt.

Therefore, one must guard not against matter but the spirit for it is this dirt that soils the soul; it is this dirt that buries the spirit.

(Nation vs Materialism)

SIMPLY PUT,
economic prosperity
depends on two things:
matter and spirit.

THIS is why materialism
ultimately destroys national wealth.

- selah -

Virtue is currency!

The rich need the poor, the poor need the rich
for each may only prosper with the other
and this relationship, by it's own virtue,
sustains the middle classes
which is the surest foundation
of a strong and steadfast democracy
providing safe shelter - for all:

A community of striving souls
standing for a just and lasting peace
where freedom is nourished - for all -
and peace, though imperfect, is yet
strongly believed and understood - by many -
as an ideal to be perfected in practice
in vision as well as in mission
- in thought and in act -
as an expression of the good will
of all citizens - least to great,
past, present, and forever.

A society of citizens
living in a just equality with each other
where every and all opportunity
though offered and received in unequal parts
by each individual citizen quantitatively
becomes a quality in the nation
that creates wealth equally
for all.
---<--@

Of Virtue and Vice

Salutation #132

(Starlight in thy Sight)

Let us not believe 

so easily in the darkness

when it is yet so dark

and so easy to believe

in people saying,

"it is dark!"

There are heroes

among us everywhere, my people.

From all states of life, 

diverse vocations, 

and areas of Republic service,

private as well as public, 

high as well as low,

they walk namelessly with us.

We only have to trust

that we walk among them

- while it is dark -

that we may believe

at approach of morning

that we were right to believe.

Do you understand this?

Evil will try to inspire us

to do good for the sake of its name

and cause us to believe

with the conviction of faith 

that its causes are right and just.

Darkness will by its own power

attempt to inebriate us

even unto our every soul

and in the confusion,

cause us to believe

with the affirmation of hope

that Night is Day.

Let us not believe

so easily in the darkness.

For

darkness that is deep

is madness!

Let us be (the opposite) 

being a people, faithful and fair -

one in heart, at-one in mind;

a Nation, true and true -

spirit-minded, rightly-guided,

vision-inspired, human and just!

---<--@

You may,
as a way of further understanding this Salutation,
also recall into thy mind the One Ring:



The reliquary of the spirit of Sauron,
the power of which is a hidden deception
masked by the golden shine of its grand allure;
an evil inspiration that led to the madness of Saruman,
the betrayal of Orthanc, and ultimately,
the ruin of Isengard.



The power of a myth lies in the reflection of its truth.

Salutation #128

The Common Market
serves the national wealth.

And this wealth is not wholly material. 

For the building up of the (inhabited) earth
is a labor that is an economy of both matter and grace.



(Prosperity Measures)

My fellow Filipinos, 
brothers and sisters of the Promise,
let us together take note -

If any undertaking of Country
should like to re-introduce or re-invigorate
its own nascent market efficiencies,
a Nation and its own Responsible State
must work together - to promptly ensure -
that the Common Market exists for the Nation
and not the other way around.

This is why
austerity measures
- in and of itself -
will not work.

For the vigor
of the national prosperity
must ultimately depend upon
the trust of the people - abiding freely -
at the heart of the Common Market.

Therefore -

Discipline the market,
not the people.

Then reassure the people,
not the market.

- selah -

Prosperity measures
are all about restoring faith
and allaying the fear at the heart of the Nation
about its own local industries, market institutions,
economic prowess, and material sufficiency.

And this is only because 
the Common Market exists for the Nation
and not the other way around.

The process of recovery,
in this particular sense,
can be summed up in one word -

"TRUST".

Engender trust 
and reap a reciprocity of trust.

Virtue is currency.
---<--@

The Three Elements of Country

Service, Synergy and Sovereignty

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

Salutation #121

The Lord Christ said,

"The poor you will always have with you..." (Matthew 26: 11)

Starshine, there will always be a minority.
---<--@

(The 4th Cause: The Cause of Minorities - Benignity)

BENIGNITY is the practice of goodness.

Now,

goodness

in the company 

of the great, the strong, 

and the powerful, 

is not an extraordinary virtue.

Therefore, 

this Cause must concern itself 

with (1) the preferential treatment and care 

of minorities (i.e. the weak and the vulnerable)

and (2) the just distribution 

of the material goods of this world.

In the person of the stranger, 

the orphan, the widow, the unborn, 

the disabled, the elderly, and the poor 

whether transient, semi-permanent, or permanent, 

there shall always exist within our midst, 

a minority.

Indeed,

at one time or another 

in the lifespan of individual human beings 

as well as in the lifespan of individual human nations, 

we all become part of this minority.

Let us always bear this in mind and heart...

- selah - listen, think.

Have we forgotten our own roots, 

O numberless stars of our Father Abraham,

O ye children of the Peace, of the Light,
promised by the God of old 

to bless the national communities 

of our needful Mankind?

Were we not all 

drawn up by the LORD

from the poverty of the minority?

Were we not all 

uplifted from our lowliness

by the mercy and beneficence of God

to people the nations of the earth?

Let us always bear this 

- in mind and heart -

especially in these present times.

For this is how 

we shall fill the earth 

with living lights.

- selah -

We are by our poverty indistinguishable! 

How we shall each 

- distinguish ourselves -

in the midst of the darkness

is through virtue and the continual refinement 

of each our inherent human nobility.

This is important to remember, 

my brothers and sisters of the Promise, 

because the victimization (by the strong) 

of the marginalized (or the weak) 

will ultimately result in the implosion 

of our national communities 

and in the Last Day, 

it shall also bring about 

its final and irreversible destruction.

The marginalization 

- in any society - 

of any of one of its parts 

is always the effect of divisions 

(overt as well as covert) 

in the one heart of the people.

A social order built on disagreements 

(abiding in prejudices, misconceptions, fear and ignorance) 

is ever like a tyranny without a tyrant -

a culture of national self-destruction!

In this hostile atmosphere, 

the spirit of the nation itself

feels ever trodden underfoot 

until the burden of Justice 

becomes unbearable.

Indeed,

the will or the spirit of War 

always takes the easiest entrance 

into the midst of the people... 

And this it always does 

by subverting the 4th Cause.

- selah -

The one sin 

a nation can not abide by 

is the presence of War in the heart.

Indeed, 

we all shall stand before God 

to account for our gifts of nationhood! 

So let us not forget
to ask ourselves before God in prayer - each day -

what we have done or chosen not to do

to improve the life of our communities

and prosper the native peace 

of each our undertakings of Country.

Because Peace is our only path - 

it is the only choice we can really make

both as human beings and as human nations.

- selah -

The 4th Cause explicitly espouses 

the first principle - that -

the strong exists in defense of the weak.

The entire hierarchy of the Angelic realms 

is ordered by God around this first principle.

And since our nations (as they are) 

are a natural extension of the unseen realms, 

we too are expected by the Providence of God 

to faithfully imitate the heavenly order 

by formally uniting ourselves as a people 

to the will and the governance of the LORD, 

our God - the one Sovereign of all nations.

What the majority does in behalf of the minority 

dictates a nation's fidelity to the 4th Cause!

Wealth generation and long-term national prosperity 

is entirely dependent on the 4th Cause!

It is from the 4th Cause that we enter 

into an understanding of the higher Causes!

---<--@

The Circular Relationship of the Four Causes

Salutation #117

A citizen is not a citizen 

- if it were not for other citizens -

not unlike him or herself.

---<--@

(Focus)

NO MATTER HOW DIFFICULT 

the evils of the present time 

may be allowed by the LORD, our King, to become,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise, 

as one Filipino nation, as one Republic undertaking,

there are only two ways we can go - 

two summits we can set our hearts upon -

two lineages we can willingly follow -

two visions we can from heaven obtain -

two freedoms we can humanly share -

two clocks we can live to abide by -

two destinies we can fight and die for.

And of the two -

only one is superior to the other,

only one is faithful to our keeping,

only one is real.

Focus determines the outcome.

People are poor 

- who have accepted -

the reality of being poor.

A nation is defeated 

- who have come to accept -

its own defeat.

Truly, truly, 

no nation can so thoroughly deplete the spirit 

and exhaust the will of another nation 

as completely as it can 

its own self!

Therefore, 

abide in thy fellowship 

as human beings and citizens to each other -

a keeper and friend:

Do not be too quick to judge,

do not expect rights you are not willing to give others,

do not rail against the humanity of others

while feigning ignorance of your own,

harbor neither hatred nor division in thy one heart of hearts,

and never ally thy own soul to the adulterous will of War

and assume evil against the nations of the children of Mankind

(for all nations, as they are purposed and made by God,
exists singularly for the LORD's own human causes
for reasons other than the triumph of evil).

Come into today!

We can not live on the past,

the past can not feed and shelter our people.

Neither can we live on our problems,

our troubles by themselves do not make us complete.

There is only the present...

And so -

IF we are complete in our remembrances

- the good in our every moment shall be complete -

and today shall be sufficient
for all our tomorrows.

Alleluia!
---<--@

Soul of Country

Salutation #95

All truth leads to freedom

only because our freedom is constantly

being perfected by the freedom of the LORD.

Freedom that is authentic to our humanity

is always relevant to our human need to be happy.

It is not the false image

of that presumptuous freedom

that shuns the accountability

that is an inherent responsibility

of an authentic human freedom.

Therefore,

freedom is not free

that binds us to the Evil in all evil things -

freedom is free which binds us to the truth

of God and of each other in common humanity.

(Truthfulness)

To be truthful,

seek first the Source of all truth

for as God is, we are.

Truth is

the mother tongue of heaven:

In the truth we are able to understand

and through it we are able to be understood.

Truth is

the common medium of all virtue:

By the truth good is recognized and applauded

and because of it evil is revealed and punished.

Therefore,

love the LORD

in everything and with everything.

This is the path of all true things.

- selah -

Strive to be aware of this

and in thy own understanding

strive in all things to speak the truth,

mean what you speak, speak what you mean,

and own up to what you mean

- doing all things in love and out of love -

for God and for thy fellow citizens upon the earth.

Exercise truthfulness

with a compassionate regard

for the humanity of other people -

so be gentle when you should speak.

For the habitual grace of truthfulness

does not bind us to the truth - rather -

it binds the truth - through us -

into the active service of charity

so that truth is made available,

by the demands of prudence

and command of charity,

most especially when it counts.

The object of this virtue is truth itself,

that which fills with substance all things whole

and endow it with force and meaning

which is more than its words.

The act of this virtue

is the honorable expression of truth

and this honorable expression - being -

the explicit recognition

amidst our human need for absolute truth

that the truth that lives in other people's lives

(the particular reality of the individual good)

- must also be recognized -

as an integral part

of this particular virtue's

expression of right action.

For the truth must be

- by its own virtue -

is wielded for no other reason

than to make men free.

---<--@

Truthfulness is an expression of the cardinal virtue, Justice.

The individual exercise of truthfulness is therefore, simultaneously both a personal as well as a civic virtue.

The ancient Filipinos possessed this virtue to a high degree.

Salutation #88

Free inquiry is a civic virtue,

it is a strength of ours to be able to think as a nation!

So we must each cultivate good habits of the mind -

the ability to think about our thinking.

My brother and sister Filipino -

are we not a free nation upon this world?

(Question Everything)

In a democracy, question everything.

Democracy is not an answer, it is a path.

We are a work of human liberty

reaching out to the only other Freedom

reaching out to us - across the void -

the perfection of God,

the unity of the LORD;

our one God and true King!

We are one ascent to the Truth -

a Country made whole by the justice of our peace;

a peace made one by our common desire to be happy.

So have a thirst, O soul of my people,

have a thirst for every true thing under heaven.

Never stop longing - not just for good things -

but for great things - truly great things!

- selah -

We exist in a world so full of longing.

There is longing in our world

because there is an emptiness in the self.

There is a constant seeking for answers.

We can never really know anything unless we ask

and those who have come to know something

- have come to their own knowledge -

not by a perfect understanding of the answers

but by an imperfect understanding

of the questions one ought to know about.

For there are questions we must ask,

there are questions we must learn to ask,

and there are questions we must never ask.

- selah -

In a democracy, question everything.

(That is, validate them in yourselves.)

Democracy is not an answer, it is a path.

---<--@

Think about it -

"And I tell you,

ask and you will receive;

seek and you will find;

knock and the door

will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks, receives;

and the one who seeks, finds;

and to the one who knocks,

the door will be opened."

(Luke 11: 9-10)

Now, if you know the Kama Sutra

more than the Kalama Sutra -

its time to start thinking!

Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing,

nor upon tradition,

nor upon rumor,

nor upon what is in a scripture,

nor upon surmise,

nor upon an axiom,

nor upon specious reasoning,

nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over,

nor upon another's seeming ability,

nor upon the consideration, "The monk is our teacher."

Kalamas, when you yourselves know:

"These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness," enter on and abide in them.

- The Buddha, Kalama Sutra