Salutation #186

Fatalism, it is oft implied,
is a cultural predisposition in our Nation
that inclines our society
to accept evil with resignation.

(The Brave Resignation of the First Filipinos)

The first Filipinos,
all of our elder tribes that comprise
those ancient Barangays and their particular communions
that peopled our lands and navigated our seas
long before the advent of Colonial times,
came upon this realm of restless skies
restless earth, and restless seas
and realizing by the power of their own experiences
an understanding of the greatness of these natural forces
sought not to take them into their knowledge
but to dwell in harmony with the spirit of this dominion
and so came they to a knowledge the forces of this realm
by seeking not to bend these forces to their will,
giving to these forces none of their words.

For our first Fathers, the ancients of our Nation,
in knowing the vast forces that dwell within this realm
sought not by their knowledge to master them through earthly will
but unanimously allowed from within each their own cultures
an abiding form of common and equal respect, each according to each,
and all according to their elemental natures as they are to be understood
through their own enduring reality and the character of its freedom
- as they are - in the restless natures of sky, earth, and sea
along with all the bounteous life therein that dwell within this realm
and so worked to introduce themselves to the Providential wisdom
that brought the lightning to the clouds, and fire to the mountains,
thunder to the earth, subdued the skies according its proper measures,
and gave due season to the winds that brought in the Great Water
and thus, dictated the life cycles of the earth and nurtured its flowing rivers
allowing these forces, in due time, to reveal themselves to them,
and the will of Providence to take them freely into their own safety
introducing to them a knowledge of the truth of those things -
adding to their wisdom, and blessing their communities.

Our ancestral cultures
- the lineages of the First Filipinos -
by their free acceptance of the Hand of Providence
in the restless natures of our skies, our lands, and our seas
gained through courage and acceptance of greater forces
an understanding of words greater and more powerful,
adapted to its wisdom, and made it their own.

This is the primary source of that Surrender.

It arose from a very determined will
born of the discerning faith of our ancient Fathers
to harmonize with the unyielding peace of greater things.

It is, as taught by their common heritage in our Soul,
a surrender to the greater wisdom that abide in greater things
freely accepting of the Providence that rightly governs All
and the better knowledge of truths that prevail in Heaven,
recognizing these things as greater and far above
any knowledge that is of the earth.

So we have come
to accept the existence of physical evil
and surrender to the greater purpose for their existence
by accepting the wisdom and the existence of a Divine Providence
that rules over all our choices... and does see beyond them
as a Reality ever so greater than our own, but most of all,
infinitely better than us and more benign than the limits
by which our hearts allow us to perceive and to understand
the pain of their reality, and the tragedy of our familiarity with its evils -
particularly when it touches ours - in our own time -
and in every time.

For we have learned - in due time -
not to question the wrath of natural forces
and as a people have come to bend like the bamboo
to the unfathomable will of Divine Providence
and surrender our pain to the embrace of a Good God.

- selah -

In our own days, seemingly far removed
from the time of ages past - so far removed, as it were -
that we forget that time is not a measure of its merest count
but is always a passage from a dawn limits to an age of limitlessness.

So where time seem distant - the distance is the illusion.
There is no distance in time - only timeless remembrance:

Love and remembrance.

It is tragic what happened to Bohol, Cebu, -
and as we feel the pain of the recent earthquake that shook
the Visayas and parts of Mindanao - we may ask again
the question the first Filipinos first asked, "why?"

It is a right thing to be hurt? Because it is not.

But should we believe
we should again seek to question
the existence of these natural forces,
challenge their reality over our own,
and seek to apply our will of anger or regret
- no matter how righteous they really are -
over forces far above the power of our humanity
to overtly command, and therefore completely prevent?

Because it is also not.

Rather, these forces should exist to question us -

as they did exist during the time of the First Filipinos.

Not to surrender to them but to expect them,
and to learn how to prevail over them
by surrendering them to God.

- selah -

Moral evil though - the things of War,
and the Evil in all evil things.

These we must always question.

For these were always alien to our Surrender
for a surrender to an evil fate is not the Surrender
that was inculcated in the spirit of our Nation
by our First peoples.

They are the source of our Fatalism.

The real words to use is Brave Resignation.
---<--@

Salutation #180

Man is a victim by first principle.



(Tread Carefully)

We live in a bubble of reality
hospitable to our humanity - body and soul -
ONLY by a mere fraction of a thought
yet the One Who does the thinking
loves the each of us infinitely
enough to keep it all indefinitely
IF - it were at all possible -
that He may save all of us
from our own choices.

If it were possible...
for even God, being our God,
does not seek power over our freedom -
Things will then end in this universe,
as science has so clearly seen,
when the purpose of God in time is fulfilled
in order for those of us who truly wish
to be simply free in the LORD
to have a real beginning...

Tread carefully.
---<--@



We are the Children because we are most vulnerable of All.
We are the Children also because we are most precious of All.

Salutation #139

(Helping Hands)

My brother and sister Filipinos -

A nation who
has no remembrance of its own past
is like a man who
have lost the use of his legs.

A nation who
has no love of its own present
is like a man who
have lost the use of his heart.

A nation who
has no vision of its own future
is like a man who
have lost the use of his mind.

If we are this nation, 
what for are our hands?

What for are our hands, my people?

- selah -

What for the memory but the light?
What for the light but the life?
What for the life but the hope?
What for the hope but the love?
What for the love but the labor?
What for the labor but the peace?
What for the peace but the LORD?

And what for the LORD, our King,
but the victory of all these good things,
alleluia to God on high, my people! 

What for our independence if not our freedom?
What for our freedom if not our peace?
What for our peace if not each other?

What for are our hands, my people?

- selah -

Who has given us our nationhood but God?

Alleluia to God on high, my people!

Did any of us choose to be born with such a soul?

Who can take this spirit in our hearts away?

Alas! Only we, my people, you or I -
by our unremembrance, by our impenitence,
by our unpeaceful, and false ways.

So let us, as the stars,
in this time before the dawn,
awaken Now.
---<--@

Salutation #118

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8: 28



(Whatever They May Be)

THERE ARE EVENTS
beloved Starshine, 

in the life of individuals

and in the life of nations

that God permits to happen

for purposes the LORD,

in His infinite Wisdom,

did decisively foresee in Eternity

which for reasons

He has reserved to Himself alone

He has deigned fit

to reveal for us

for our own safety and progress

through various instruments

only at appointed times.

If we learn to discern

these moments in our lives

and in the life of our nations -

If we learn the lessons

Providence is trying to teach us

through these choice events -

whatever they may be...

If we understand how it is to listen, 

and if we remain willing to learn, 

alone or with others -

we may only profit from them.

---<--@

Queen Esther's Prayer

Of the two important Jewish Holy Days I tend to personally identify with, this prayer forms the spiritual basis for the first one, Purim.

The other feast is Hannukah of whose main protagonist is Judah Maccabee (of the Book of Maccabees).

Both these feasts celebrate (in eternal remembrance) for all of Israel (i.e. from everywhere and from everytime) the deliverance (wrought by the LORD through His instruments) of the Jewish people as a nation from a particular form of evil that threatened to permanently and irreversibly disrupt God's own relationship with the present generations of that time.

- selah -

Queen Ester's Prayer

Queen Esther, seized with mortal anguish, likewise had recourse to the LORD.

Taking off her splendid garments, she put on garments of distress and mourning. In place of her precious ointments she covered her head with dirt and ashes. She afflicted her body severely; all her festive adornments were put aside, and her hair was wholly disheveled.

Then she prayed to the LORD, the God of Israel, saying:

"My LORD, our King, you alone are God.

Help me, who am alone and have no help but You, for I am taking my life in my hand.

As a child I was wont to hear from the people of the land of my forefathers that You, O LORD, chose Israel from among all peoples, and our fathers from among all their ancestors, as a lasting heritage, and that you fulfilled all your promises to them.

But now we have sinned in Your sight, and You have delivered us into the hands of our enemies, because we worshiped their gods. You are just, O LORD.

But now they are not satisfied with our bitter servitude, but have undertaken to do away with the decree You have pronounced, and to destroy Your heritage; to close the mouths of those who praise You, and to extinguish the glory of Your temple and Your altar; to open the mouths of the heathen to acclaim their false gods, and to extol an earthly king forever.

O LORD, do not relinquish Your scepter to those that are nought. Let them not gloat over our ruin, but turn their own counsel against them and make an example of our chief enemy.

Be mindful of us, O LORD. Manifest Yourself in the time of our distress and give me courage, King of gods and Ruler of every power.

Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion, and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy, so that he and those who are in league with him may perish.

Save us by Your power, and help me, who am alone and have no one but You, O LORD. You know all things."

(Esther C: 12-25)

I simply love Queen Esther. She is one of my all-time favorite heroines of the Old Testament!

We could indeed take a page from the memory of Israel through the Book of Esther to help guide us through these difficult times.

Glorified be God in all His Angels and in all His Saints - forever!

Salutation #46

(The Wisdom of Learning)

We are - because -

we have come to know who we are not.

This is why we must ask our questions

sincerely seeking for answers.

For when we learn any truth,

we do not learn to use it - unless -

we are led by an understanding

of our need of it.

We become wise

not by the conception of what we know how to do

- but by the sheer weight -

of what we know we ought not to do.

Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.

We become wise - only -

when we become broken enough

by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.

Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.

For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Or we could learn to listen, to ponder and to observe -

To be able to surrender a measure

of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,

submit our independence to their discipline

and strive to remain in the humility of our youth

- the agelessness of little children -

to be able to absorb their constant teaching.

Fear of the instruments of the LORD

must also lead to a reverence of Him.

For wisdom that is learned

and wisdom that is transmitted

are one and the same thing.

In the former,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to never trust.

And in the latter,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to trust.

Both of these - being those things -

that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.

Such is the condition of our exile!

For if our bliss is to never know danger,

to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.

The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.

And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.

For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -

as all our learning must eventually disappear

from the confines of both mind and heart

to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.

All knowledge is a giving that begins with God

and a receiving that must end forever in God.

All our learning is nothing we can possess.

All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.

We possess it for a while as a means to find our way

and then we must return it - again and again -

to the LORD Who possesses all means.

Indeed,

learning that does not lead to wisdom

is like water that never flows - without purpose -

and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.

All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.

For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -

must be something we forever give away.

---<--@

20110821

The National Salutation

ALL SALUTATIONS are meant to invoke into our collective memory the reality of something good.

Evil being devoid of the excellence we tend to honor and admire is not something we commonly salute as individual human beings and as human nations together we do not openly invoke them in our salutations.

Therefore, we may safely exclude from this particular reflection anything else but the good in things.

"Mabuhay" is the salutation commonly associated with the Philippines. As such, it is something quite familiar to all of us Filipinos and even to other nations.

It is not a salutation of individuals.

Therefore, it can never be something meant to refer to any individual or anything about the life of an individual or about his or her virtues no matter how excellent.

So what does it mean when we Filipinos say "mabuhay"?

And when we Filipinos say "mabuhay" to whom or to what in particular do we tend to commonly - or even unconsciously - address it to?

Mabuhay simply means "to bring to life". It is a salutation that invokes "life" or the quality of it.

Now, the life of any nation is the product of the quality of the communities that exists within itself. It is therefore, a measure of the sum of all its relationships.

This sum is always positive no matter how deteriorated any nation becomes. There are no last peoples only disappeared cultures. There will always be remnant nations for as long as there are nations upon our world.

Because just as there are no such things as false hopes, only real ones; there are no such things as false relationships, only real ones.

But the quality of these relationships within the nation is a product of the quality of the national remembrance. For it is remembrance that dictates the quality of the national peace.

- selah -

Mabuhay is the salutation of our nation in its entirely and so must refer to the quality of the life of the nationhood in each ourselves as well as the completeness of the sacred remembrances we must keep through all our generations as a nation upon this earth.

It intends to invoke in the Filipino heart, a memory of itself.

It is a salutation addressed directly and simultaneously to all Filipinos from everywhere and from every time and is meant to return our every present generation to the timeless memory of our people.

It reminds us of the reality of our nationhood; its duties and responsibilities, its mission, promise and destiny. It says to every Filipino heart, "long may our remembrances serve us".

So when we Filipinos say "mabuhay" it should mean that we do love the Philippines as citizens to each other, and that we do understand it as truth in our hearts.

When we say it with substance, this truth empowers us.

It must elicit in our hearts a love that is not distant or abstract.

It must remind us of something real to our common hopes as a nation, something we can all meaningfully understand.

It must continuously rekindle in ourselves as citizens to each other a kind of ownership proper to our national trust and empower us with a love of Country that reaches right down to the ground of our national communities enabling every Filipino to freely bring the blessings of our peace into lives of the very least of our brothers and sister, the littlest Filipinos.

- selah -

The life of every nation is derived from its particular sense of unity and this particular sense of unity is derived from the strength of its peace.

Upon this peace (and the abundance or the lack of it) is established the order and the cohesion of all its national community.

A nation's life therefore, is measured by the sum of all the relationships within itself.

Mabuhay is meant to recall us to a memory of all of these relationships and in particular, to the poor and needy, not to remind us of what we lack but to return us to what we all must be, to the labor that our nation is purposed for by God, the trust that bind together all our generations, and the remembrance of the peace that must constantly live in each of us as citizens, one to another, equally engaged in our one Republic undertaking of Country - mabuhay!

---<--@

Salutation #46

(The Wisdom of Learning)

We are - because -

we have come to know who we are not.

This is why we must ask our questions

sincerely seeking for answers.

For when we learn any truth,

we do not learn to use it - unless -

we are led by an understanding

of our need of it.

We become wise

not by the conception of what we know how to do

- but by the sheer weight -

of what we know we ought not to do.

Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.

We become wise - only -

when we become broken enough

by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.

Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.

For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Or we could learn to listen, to ponder and to observe -

To be able to surrender a measure

of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,

submit our independence to their discipline

and strive to remain in the humility of our youth

- the agelessness of little children -

to be able to absorb their constant teaching.

Fear of the instruments of the LORD

must also lead to a reverence of Him.

For wisdom that is learned

and wisdom that is transmitted

are one and the same thing.

In the former,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to never trust.

And in the latter,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to trust.

Both of these - being those things -

that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.

Such is the condition of our exile!

For if our bliss is to never know danger,

to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.

The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.

And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.

For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -

as all our learning must eventually disappear

from the confines of both mind and heart

to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.

All knowledge is a giving that begins with God

and a receiving that must end forever in God.

All our learning is nothing we can possess.

All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.

We possess it for a while as a means to find our way

and then we must return it - again and again -

to the LORD Who possesses all means.

Indeed,

learning that does not lead to wisdom

is like water that never flows - without purpose -

and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.

All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.

For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -

must be something we forever give away.

---<--@

A Filipino is a kind of love and this love binds us all together as one nation.

---<--@

Today, we remember Ninoy - his life, his loves, his hopes, his labors, his sacrifice.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

One Nation

20110720

If the LORD asks you for a harvest of good works, do you go and blame one another for the lack of fruit in His orchard, O you nations of Mankind?

---<--@

Salutation #41

(Divine Love)

Starshine, be not afraid.

If the Judgment of God did not directly involve our nations,

I would not have been speaking about it to you.

Who shall God save, Beloved?

Despite all these differences in yourselves,

the bottom line is the hope of All is the salvation of all.

Do good, be good, pray hard, work hard,

be a human being to other human beings not unlike thyself

(forgetting not how Our Emmanuel brought you up into new life)

and do this for love of the God in your own heart;

acknowledge only Him, worship only Him, and leave all else to Him,

and never despair of others like yourself

for the LORD thy God is supremely able and mighty to save,

full of compassion for all His creatures,

slow to anger, unsurpassed in generosity,

merciful and just to all living beings.

Starshine,

all you love in your heart is worthy to be saved by Him

so love All in Him and trust in the LORD.

Maintain a state of common good will

with all thy fellow citizens upon the earth,

and say thee thy peace - freely and with joy -

back to all of creation entire, divide it not,

you whose soul is alive to the wonder God has done.

Be reconciled to the salvation God intends

for all those who love and fear Him.

Follow all that He ordains

and seek thee the shelter of all His commands

and you shall remain safe from doubt and needless fear.

Prosper the living life of His glorious creation

and thou shalt return to thy LORD in peace.

Do not make judgments reserved

for the final Justice of God in Eternity

while you are yet caught adrift in this exile darkness.

Love all living beings

- with all your mind and heart -

and love yourself as well.

For you can not love others

- without first coming alive -

to the love you must invest

in your own humanity.

Ask the LORD for wisdom in unceasing prayer.

Learn His ways through discerning acceptance

of the realities that He everyday spins around you

- as a net cast around thy being -

sown from the thread of thy human communities

into the fabric that separates you from the void

not only to keep you and all those you love safe with you

but to instruct you also in the same work of living creation.

If you love the LORD, you shall do this and you will love as God loves.

If you love Jesus Christ, you shall do this above all else - as a sacred duty -

for in Christ the fundamental law of divine love is perfected

and the justice of God is made complete in love which is boundless mercy.

Never desire hellfire on other human beings.

For if you do not yet understand it

you should not play with it.

Do not dwell in dark fire

lest it consume you body and soul.

Rather,

let yourself be consumed in the bright fire of God's love

and you shall live complete

and with your little life fashioned by God

you shall be a great instrument

of the life of God in Him -

the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

If you love the LORD, you shall do this and you will love as God loves.

If you love Jesus Christ, you shall do this above all else - as a sacred duty -

for in Christ the fundamental law of divine love is perfected

and the justice of God is made complete in love which is boundless mercy.

AMEN. Alleluia to God.

Adoration to Jesus Christ the Lord.

Peace to all our nations and goodwill to all men and women of peace.

Alleluia to God. AMEN.

---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! Peace. Salaam. Shalom. God bless all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

Promise of Old

20110717

THE 21ST CENTURY shall be a century shaped by the decisive strength of our civic convictions on human rights issues. The more decisive these convictions are, the clearer the way ahead shall appear for our nation/s.

Bear in mind and heart, my honorable compatriots, that the 19th Century was the century of chemistry; the 20th, of physics; the 21st, as we shall see, will be one of biology (or to be more precise, Sacred Life).

- selah -

Salutation #37

(Silence, Self-Expression and the Human Potential)

PEACE be with you, Starshine -

Man is an expression of the language of creation.

We are, therefore,

creatures meant to find our own unique ways

to express the creative ideal in ourselves.

To cultivate and nurture our talents

and bring it out into our nations and into our world.

And there are many means and mediums

for adequate human self-expression in our visible universe.

Indeed, our ways of expressing the language of God in ourselves

is as wide and varied as our own individual uniqueness

- and even so -

there shall always remain more than enough room

in all the realms of creation, both seen as well as unseen,

for every free expression of the human potential

- in all its limitless forms -

BUT only for the work purposed for and to our humanity

by the will of God and the common needs of our Mankind.

If there is a perceived lack of these, Beloved of the LORD,

if the wonderful boundlessness of human expression is at present

seemingly constrained and constricted

- in our times and in our nations -

we must understand it is not yet

due to the lack of a necessary technological progress

in the craft of the sciences of Mankind

- as many are inclined to think nowadays -

because until we have learned to examine first

the progress of human potential in our communities

as nations among nations

as well as our own potential to express the creative ideal

as citizens to each other

as a way of giving expression

to the language of creation in ourselves

as individuals and as nations under the LORD

what knowledge we may obtain from our sciences

will only prove futile and deeply frustrating

in the constant pursuit of happiness.

Because creation is not an event

- it is a process -

and this process is a continuum

that began as One and shall end as One.

It requires the consistent development of the human element

as a free and active expression of the boundlessness of itself.

For the human potential

and its free and adequate expression

- in ourselves and in our nations -

is the only potential singularly capable

of producing and sustaining for all of visible creation,

through the Providence of God

and the free and necessary actions

of the willing instruments of the LORD

- physical, spiritual or both -

the allied Peace of the one family of the nations of Mankind

which is the governing principle of the Providence of God

as it is established by Him in this realm of the visible universe.

Left largely unrecognized and under-developed,

all forms of civic order and value will soon be forgot,

and our world shall be imperiled.

Hear me now, Starshine -

happiness is a gift gained by the labor of individuals

from the necessary field of a community of individuals.

So if you will to save the dream for one, as they say -

you must go and save the dream for all.

If we can not as citizens agree

on how to be a human being to each other,

the earth itself will rebel against the labor of our nations;

the silence of our skies will fall into utter meaninglessness

and all the Sacred Life of our planet will flee us.

Time will cease to flow

from the timeless in the human heart,

remembrance shall wither,

and all of human history shall seem

an unremitting retreat

into the darkness.

To the everlasting regret of all.

Now,

because of our human need for the human expression,

- we seek -

and from our seeking, we labor.

There is much noise in our world because of this - and -

amidst all this clamor of living life

- be it good or bad -

it is quite easy to lose ourselves entirely

in the pursuit of everyday living.

Amidst this is Silence.

For what is important to all human beings,

Beloved of God and citizen of all common creation,

is not always what one can see

or hear with external senses alone.

The most basic of human citizenship, precious Starshine,

is a sense of belonging to the one whole of all creation, seen and unseen.

From this all other citizenship draw their legitimacy.

To lose sense of this belonging is to fall away from Sacred Remembrance.

Because there are larger expressions of reality that yours alone.

All are aligned towards one manifest purpose.

The gravity of the last 2000 years or more

will instinctively attempt to paint in your mind and heart

a different picture of ourselves,

as human beings and as human nations

- inhuman, divided in the Heart by the spirit of War -

but the visible universe itself will witness to all human hearts

that there are no divisions in creation, there is only true belonging.

This is an integral part

of the universal patrimony of our humanity as a whole.

We are one whole one with all of creation.

It is part of our being human.

Something that may only be understood in the Silence.

When we are silent,

we are inescapably met with a motion to cease and desist

in the necessary work of finding ourselves,

and for a moment, even only for a single moment,

something seem to beckon our hearts to pause

and to leave the noise and the haste of this realm of creation.

Inwardly, we move toward the timeless, towards a realm of absolutes.

This can only be a choice.

It dawns like dew upon the heart, certain as certain can be,

inclining the free will of Man to bend to its beckoning.

But it is never a choice begun by Man.

So when we are silent, precious Starshine,

we are only silent in response -

to God and the Sanctity of All that is in the LORD.

It is this choice to respond

- to the Sacred Silence -

that is singularly ours to make

that we may each begin again anew

the communicative union that work to continually realize

the expression of the creative ideal in ourselves

(in God and with each other in Him).

Truly,

prayer and quiet thoughtfulness

form part of our authentic human freedoms.

Silence itself is an absolute.

It dawns upon our realization as dew is distilled upon the heart.

It is a medium of things that exist

beyond the totality of all human experience.

Here in exile time however, it has a false image.

For there are two human choices that open the way to silence.

But only one leads to Peace.

The other leads to sin.

For as far as the freedom of Man is able,

our souls must be led to reach out

to the only other freedom

that reaches out to us - the freedom of God;

the singular source of all our freedoms.

And the exercise of Silence, in its own due season,

tempers our hearts tactful to the truth of these things.

For there always shall remain in Man,

something that resists human expression,

something permanent, something sacred,

an accolade to remembrance...

When we are silent - in those times, O my heart,

let us be mindful of that initial choice to respond to the LORD

that we may know by Whom our silence speaks.

That our silence may never bend

to the evil in all evil things.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Service is a call (not an ambition)

"First They Came for the Jews"
By Pastor Martin Niemoller

First They came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Salutation #36

(Exhortation to America for National Unity)

You are either American by birth or by deliverance -

either way, shouldn't you be grateful that you are?

When you came forth into your Country,

when the Providence of Almighty God

called you forth into citizenship with your Nation

you were either Democrat or Republican,

black, white, yellow, red or brown -

do your still remember this?

And does it matter to you now

whether you were born into America

or you were graciously adopted by her -

you were just a soul in great need

of the love and strength of human community.

You needed a place to grow up in.

You needed a place to shelter away from.

You needed a place you may build your dreams upon.

You needed a home away from Home - for you.

Now you have come this far only to forget

that with divisions you spurn her love.

If a Filipino like myself can have a feel

for your sense of Country, how much more you -

dear American soul, friend to my Friend,

and kindred to the peace of my own Nation?

I spent a little over 8 years

immersed in your undertaking of Country, America.

I was there with you at the close of the last century.

I felt your trepidation as we counted down the Y2K clock.

I felt the relief that came after.

I felt your insecurities at the start of the 21st century.

I saw it come to a head during the presidential elections of 2000.

I felt your growing distress at the confusion this election brought you.

I admired the strength of your loyalty to your Republic afterwards.

I was there with you during the 9/11 attacks.

I felt the initial haze and the awestruck disbelief.

I felt the growing anger.

I felt the anxiety and the uncertainty.

I felt your cries for justice and I yearned for it as well.

I feared for you, America,

for the consequences of this new war on terror.

For it seemed to me a war with no clear conclusions.

I saw you went to war in Afghanistan.

I saw you went to war in Iraq.

I experienced with you the savagery

of all those videotaped terror attacks on individual civilians.

I felt the thrill of your small victories.

I experienced with you

the bittersweet story of Pat Tillman

and Jessica Lynch.

I felt the pain of your mounting losses.

I mourned with you the loss of Columbia and its brave crew

and felt your helplessness when Katrina hit New Orleans.

I felt your concerns

for the well-being of your citizenry,

even your celebrities - their exploits and scandals,

but especially your unforgotten veterans

and the common folk.

I felt your social insecurities.

I felt your growing racial divides.

I felt the quiet class struggles within you

between the haves and the have-nots.

I felt the depth of the longing in your youth

and the resilient strength of their own dreaming as well.

I felt the frustration of those undocumented workers

who were all lumped into the singular term "illegal immigrant"

as if being a person is a crime.

I was one of them.

I felt the frustration of your traditional sources

of sober civic strength

in the dwindling middle classes

retreating either into walled isolation

or forced to retire far, far away from you.

I felt your own growing frustration,

O elder Republic.

And I grew afraid for you.

For I have long felt your inward fragmentation

long before War cast its shadow on you.

Above all, I felt this need,

this really deep-seated need for a faith

that will restore you to yourself -

the faith that was yours right from the start.

The faith you forgot.

I am grateful for the chance to experience you, America.

And I am thankful to God that I have kept my gratitude.

Therefore,

if there is anything I'd like to see, America -

it is your own faith restored.

You must awaken to new things!

Therefore,

you must work to liberate your soul

from too much materialism -

The Common Market exists to serve

and to prosper the Nation.

So too does the Responsible State exist

for the sake of the good of the Nation.

I promise you it will be difficult.

Indeed, it will be difficult for all of us

as the one family of the nations of Mankind.

But consummate with its hardships are its rewards.

And we are not without help, America,

- we have God and we have each other -

as nations dreaming together this time.

You must understand

in this new age, under this season of heaven -

we are all pioneers now.

-selah -

The spirit of War

- being conscious of itself -

will exert maximum effort

to prevent our entrance

into the door that leads us away

from its unfamiliar reign.

Hence,

it shall be natural for the spirit of War

to strategically pick its fights.

And America,

your own heart of hearts

is one of those choice battlegrounds

and you know it.

The major Countries,

the most developed,

those who are near its age of maturity,

the emerging ones,

the stronger ones,

as well as those decisive groupings of nations -

they shall all be placed against this common test.

We shall be pitted against each our own truths,

tempted to the point of breaking and despairing,

and even exposed to danger.

But through it all,

we shall either only surrender

to the gravity of War - or break away from it -

by our drawing nearer to God,

the LORD and Sovereign of all human nations

and first defender of thy Republic

(and of mine, and of all other orphaned nations).

So may God preserve us all, dear America,

from the evil of these present times.

---<--@

Substance and the American Dream

It is not material wealth that makes people happy, starshine.

Although I will not deny that material wealth greatly improves the lives of people, it is the needs of the people's hearts that must first be addressed to make a way for happiness.

For it is the heart that asks to be happy: It is the soul of Man that wills to contain the happiness he seeks and not the corporal body.

Now, the corporal body desires corporal pleasure and will not be happy by itself with a smile, or a loving touch, or any spiritual blessings wrought in graces or gifts.

What the body desires for itself must dwell only within the limits of its physicality but because it is the soul of Man (in the habitation of his or her heart) that asks to be happy, we all seek for an everlasting kind of happiness.

Ultimately, we realize, in the course of each our lives, that we have somehow fallen in love with the dreaming more than the dream itself, with the living more than the life, the Eternal more than the temporal.

Because the soul of Man, Beloved of God, endowed with the image and likeness of His Creator, is immortal.

This is why it will just not do to fashion the American Dream on material substance alone. The pursuit of happiness is a spiritual striving.

Is it? Can a nation ever really lose its dreaming?

Redefine the dream, I say, and it shall be yours once again.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Amerika at mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless all His nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.

A Just Equality

20110708

Salutation #32

(One Heart, One People, One Destiny)

Peace be with you.

My fellow Filipino compatriots,

in the Final Accounting of all things,

it shall be shown and made known to to All

that

we are a nation distinct

but not apart from all our other kindred nations -

a human nation, allied to the kindred peace

of all the other nations of our one family of nations.

We are a nation,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

and so it is as a nation

that we shall be held responsible

by both heaven and earth before the God of all heaven and earth.

As a nation, O my people,

we are by our individualities, families, tribes, communities and generations

bound by one heart, one labor, and one destiny.

We are thus called, as citizens to each other,

according to our fidelity to the truths of our nationhood,

to make a shelter for our generations -

the shelter of Country - a home away from Home for all living beings.

As a nation,

we shall rise or fall upon the void of the unknown earth

according to the one peace of our peoples

and the one economy of our generations

to the very last of our generations.

As a nation,

we shall build upon this world,

the kindred peace of Country

to the glory of Almighty God in heaven,

and fill it with living lights

or lay it to waste

by our refusal to

subdue the darkness

in and amidst ourselves - the evil in all evil things.

As a nation without its peace, we shall fail -

a defeated Country, desolate and empty of promise,

of broken, shattered skies,

we shall remain in the dread embrace of this maddening darkness,

falling forever into the void.

As a nation in possession of our peace, we shall persevere.

Victory shall in its time be restored to each of us by God Himself

where w

e shall together with our own eyes

behold

the triumph of an unimaginable abundance.

As a nation,

we are called by weight of our history

and by the call of our destiny

to rise above our differences.

And to do so with courage and tenacity -

for h

ow else is peace to be defended?

Indeed, my honorable compatriots,

it matters most what unites us than what divides us.

Our differences are diverse

and the cause of many valid concerns,

but they are temporal.

Unity is eternal.

---<--@

There is no honor in PARTISAN POLITICS if it is utterly disloyal to the singular cause for which it exists.

Partisanship in politics is good but only if it encourages a unity of decision that promotes wisdom in legislation, and therefore, as a constant exercise in one's strength of political judgment.

But if it encourages indecision, paralysis, and reckless action in the Republic for which it is called to serve in responsible government, if it bestows upon its nation no sense of common guidance and unity - partisanship, it may be said, is not politics at all, it is simply plunder.

---<--@

The Nation and the Responsible State -

We can not demand perfection from the State anymore than God can demand perfection from ourselves without His aid and His authority.

The life of the State is derived from the life of the Nation.

Its authority is a divine authority granted by will of Providence out of the necessity of the people themselves to be governed either by the original line of their kings and rulers (as in a Monarchy) or by their peers (as in a Republic).

It is therefore, composed of human beings - no more, no less. The real power of the Responsible State lies in its ability to unify its peace with the peace of its own Nation - this synergy builds up the Common Market, preserves the peace of civil society, prospers the people and blesses the generations of the people.

This is the labor of our own particular Republic undertaking of Country and is something we must gradually learn from our own common experience as a people united in time and in eternity under the peace of our Republic vision.

It is something that we gradually grow into like a tree growing under the Light of the LORD, our God, and one Sovereign; Almighty God Whose pruning and guidance we must also pay close attention to as a nation entire.

Furthermore, before the promised time of the LORD, it is an imperfect peace and keeps every nation of our one family of the nations of Mankind walking in humility before God always - and for our own good.

There may be many undertakings of Country upon this earth but there is no one undertaking of Country like our own. Neither can this Country be built by any nation other than ourselves.

Therefore, let us build like natives, live like pilgrims, and love like Christians.

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Healing Work

The Shattering