Turn the Other Cheek

When the Lord said to "turn the other cheek", it doesn't mean to invite more disaster. We Christians should understand we do not want to suffer more than what we have to, for suffering is evil.

But to suffer well we must. For our Lord did suffer well, indeed well enough to overcome the world and all it's evil for all humanity for all time.

And so we are taught by our Jesus to "turn the other cheek" as a form of non-retaliation and forgiveness to those who are unjust and seek violent means for violent ends and to keep our Christian dignity even in the face of our oppressors.

When we turn the other cheek, we forgive, we learn, and we let go.

When we turn the other cheek, we desire to break down cycles of violence, teach justice and Christian love over adversarial hate and contempt for human life, and return all souls to God.

When we turn the other cheek, we do not seek to invite more evil to come upon us but seek to invite more peace to come among us - and make what once was wounded and divided, healthy and whole once again.

Let us together meditate on this and pray about it.
---<--@

The Alienation of Hatred

2013 to 2022 is the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures

Starshine,
when nations are angry at each other,
the reasons could be many things,
but it could never be because
they are nations.

They are angry
at the reasons they're angry
and this could indeed be many things
- true or untrue, right or wrong -
but it could never be because
they are nations.

Lest we forget,
lest we forget.

The craft of all nations is peace.

As a tree may only be destroyed from the roots,
a nation may only be undone by its willingness
to forget its own remembrances.
---<--@



A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled and asked,

"Why do people shout in anger shout at each other?"

The disciples thought for a while, one of them said, "Because we lose our calm, we shout."

"But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner", asked the saint.

The disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the other disciples. Finally the saint explained,

"When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance.

What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small..."

The saint continued, "When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other."

He looked at his disciples and said,

"So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return."

(from the Internet)

In a world as small as ours,
and getting smaller each day,
do we have to keep on
shouting at each other?

Indeed, 
these distances 

can become quite near.

---<--@

Starshine,
if you understood the words of the saint,
you must now also realize - within your own self -
that this distance that prevents us
from seeing each other - as human beings -
is a spiritual reality.

For this unseeing is a form of darkness.
And this distance too is a form of darkness
the cause of which is our persistence
to choose true-blindness
over true-sight...

A darkness that (both) prevents
as well as seeks to prevent.
---<--@

Those who live for anger
know that the alienation of hatred
is permanent.

For theirs are those whose spirits move
from wilderness to wilderness
finding neither company
nor safe abode.

But those who live for love
know that, through one may become angry
and restless for a day,
one may always return to love
and find peace.

Excepted from Love that thou may live
---<--@

Starshine,
remember the impassable divide
between the rich man and Lazarus?

Truly, it is far easier for the soul of Man
to travel from one end of the universe to the other
than to bridge a spiritual distance as permanent
- as that which divides -
(the golden realms of) heaven
and (the bitter desolation of) hell.

Pray not to remain
a fugitive to thy own heart.
Release thy self (to love) and be free.

- selah -

In the end we are all wildflowers...
In the end we belong to each other...
In the end we belong to all nations...
In the end all nations belong to us...

Love is the perfection of nations.
---<--@

Remember:

When nations make war 
because they are nations, 
endless shall be our strife!

When history forgets and
its spirits live for no regret
the ruin of Man shall be rife!

Standing Still

Only in the silence shall you know the words.



Be!

Say nothing for once,
and embrace everything;
forget all thy words and love!

Accept!

Knowing thy unknowing -
to refresh... and to remember...
and to live...

Hope!

Hoping all hopes bravely,
making them one
in thy heart...

Build!

Cherishing not
just the dream itself,
laboring to always dwell
within the dreaming...

Forgive!

Remove
all thy barriers
to the making us one...

   ...a better peace awaits.

Save thyself.
---<--@

Salutation #151

(Crossing Together as one Family)

LISTEN!

The burden of the times
is a burden of expectation.

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

For all have sinned
the sin of War.

   Is there any nation in our world
   who is completely without guilt 
  of shedding the blood of another?
 
Therefore,
do we deserve
each other's forgiveness?

Yes.

Is there any other way
to progress into the new age?

- selah -

UNLESS
all our nations
become aware enough
to care enough
about the suffering
of our common humanity
during the last 2000 years
to desire it
for each our undertaking of Countries
to completely break away
from the poisonous reign of war,
we shall yet again
descend into
another age of conflict
more terrible than the last!

UNLESS
our peace is kin,
all ye nations of the children of Mankind,
we shall never become
family enough
to become possessed
with the strength of unity enough
to bridge and overcome the spiritual rifts
that threaten to devour
our peoples.

IF
we do not dispel
the spirit of War now,
- in and among ourselves -
we shall yet again
become subject
to its terrors.

NOT
because it is God's judgment for Man
but because it is Man's judgment
on himself.

- selah -

EACH
our undertaking of Country
stands to gain in age and maturity
in this present time.

NOW
do we deserve
the abundant prosperity
- spiritual as well as material -
that the peace of our planet may usher in
and freely offer to us?

Yes!

For
we have as nations
suffered long enough now
to know and to understand
the answer to our troubles...

We just needed to be asked...

SO NOW
the question is being presented to us
in each our hearts and across our nations -

Do we deserve
the abundant prosperity
- spiritual as well as material -
that the peace of our planet may usher in
and freely offer to us?

- selah -

THEREFORE,
at the coming of the new,
markedly by the end of this year 2012,
we must work to complete our remembrances -

This means to sift through
all the hurt and the pain of the past
and get the hopes of our nations aright.

   Why were our nations commissioned by God?
   Is it for the purpose of dominating and humiliating each other?
   We certainly can not totally erase this divine commission,
   we can only fight ourselves into exhaustion - again and again.

   Is not our common craft the craft of peace?
   Is not our common labor the building up the inhabited earth?
   Is not our common endowment naught but each other?
   Is not our common vision life and the abundance of living life?
   Is not our common mission the complete and utter transformation
   of the darkness of the unknown earth ever by the kindred light
   of each of our own particular(ly) human civilization?

This means to get rid of all historical baggage!

Yes, this means to forgive and to be forgiven -
people to people, and nation to nation.

UNTIL
our peace is truly kin
and we are a family once more.

AND
we must do this work of completion
- as human beings and citizens to each other -
that we may each MAKE the right choices
that each our nations will TAKE
- together this time -
into the right door that opens
into the right future.

THIS
is how we shall fulfill
the minimum of the times.

THIS
is how we shall together shine outward
as the numberless stars of our Father Abraham,
seeing far into forever.

THIS
is how we shall close
the iron gates of Country
against the darkness of the past.

THIS
is how we shall cross
into our futures together
as the one family of the nations
of the children of Mankind.

There is no other safer way across the river 
that marks the beginning of the new 
than together.
---<--@

20110911 PM

Sunday Evenings

Good evening, the Philippines - mabuhay!

I do not have much to add this evening. I am eager to go home, relax and watch the specials as regards the 10th year commemoration of 9/11.

You know, it is much easier to hate than to love. Hatred burns with almost any kind of fuel. Love, on the other hand, is often fraught with difficulties. For love burns only with love.

Where hatred is safe, love is often not safe. Love, by nature of its own truth, has to make itself vulnerable.

And you can see this interplay between love and hate in the life and times of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I trust we were all able to fulfill our Sunday obligations to God today.

You can never notice these things if you constantly renege on our Christian duty to offer worship to the Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit above all, in this day of days.

If you reflect on the Gospels, persisting in prayer, especially during Holy Mass, then by a certain grace of God, you will be able to see through the words into the Word and the story shall in the eye of thy heart come to life.

This is why Holy Mass is the pivot of my week. And as far as I am able to, I seek to go to Holy Mass more than once a week. And I go to Mass not because I am holy but because I am a sinner in much need of holiness. I am a creature in desperate need of his God. I will perish if it were not for His mercy.

Now, the Gospel this week (Mt. 18: 21-35) is all about forgiveness.

Loving and forgiving go hand in glove. In the Gospel, Jesus instructed Peter about the nature of forgiveness.

Jesus said "seventy times seven" times.

This means we are expected by our Lord and Savior to be able to forgive others as well as self - always - and to do so - perfectly.

I just want to leave you with this thought before we enter into another work week.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle of hatred - in ourselves.

It frees us from the grip of our enemies not by subduing them but by breaking the power of nemesis by allowing ourselves to become their friends.

Everybody have a great working week ahead!

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Blindness