Free Falling

SOMETIMES when I look up at the sky
and think about how far those distances are, it feels like falling. 

The visible heaven above, so vast it escapes apprehension... Then I realize... local is relative. 

Place is relative to time. 

Time seems to us fleeting but time itself is more permanent than places. Think about it.

Time is a veil, an unfolding. Time is the weave upon which each of us must impress the essence of realities more permanent than the impermanence that seem to engulf the temporal universe with great mystery. Forever for us is a work in progress...

Time will lift as a mourning veil come time itself so that if we were to impress upon it sweet and happy things, when the lifting of the veil shall happen and forever itself come at hand...

it shall be amazing.
---<--@

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13: 34-35

One great round

Time is a flow. 

Flowing forward for everybody.

For each of us however,
time seems one great round.

For all of time
for all of us
in the absolute sense
is a reconciliation
with ultimate beginnings.



Life is a struggle. 

Free will is at the root of this struggle.

Some people would say free will is the root of all evil.

I shall beg to disagree with them.

- selah -

We all live to be free. 

Free of what though? Free of our free will?

Shall we shed off time and mortality to find only nothing? 

Is this humanity's truest, innermost expectation of the end of time?

Even those who do not believe in the Divine must know there exists evil in this world.

The freedom we must all live for is not the cause of this evil.

- selah -

The root of all evil is evil itself. 

That we human beings
must suffer to live our lives through this world
is because there is evil in this world that persists
and shall persist while this world persists.

The Evil in all evil things is the root of all evil.
This Evil is the indirect cause of physical evils.
This Evil is the direct cause of moral evils.

It lies beneath the fabric of all things seen.

- selah -

This is why in this life, 
we must struggle.

Not in spite of all that is evil
but in the very midst of it.

Not despite our free will
but precisely because of it.

That we may know once again
how it is to desire to live
in perfect freedom.

That we may together again
regain in original perfection
at the beginning of all things new
the abundant power of our free will.

One great round.
---<--@

We awaken to a calling

Change, they say, is the only constant in this life. This is true for me. Life is a constant change. As in the beautiful song by Jose Marie Chan.

But within all that change, I have found, lies a common thread hidden in the everyday lives of all people. It pulls us invisibly towards something. And it pulls at us at different times of our life.

We do not end up all the same in life.

But all the same, the experience of life in this world leaves us all changed. The seasons themselves say it by their cycles. The Liturgy of Mother Church also, as the seasons of Earth and Sky, speak of change in their great and mysterious rounds. Life is a constant change.

And it pulls us all towards a spiritual transformation.

The ends by which we live our lives as a means is this change.

The presence of death in this world not only prepares us for the crossing of a Greater Sea but is the Angel that is to also guide us through and comfort us when the time comes for us to "pass over" from temporality into immortality.

For death is but a passage by which we are come to another experience of change. Yea, in this life - before the hour of our passing away - we die a little each moment, each day.

It pulls at us to remind us to be watchful of the living moment. Not to be afraid of it. But to learn from it. And to learn from the living of this life. And to start thinking about the deeper questions of life. Not to fear the changing. But to live as we must. To gather up those changes into a bouquet that we may offer up to our Lord and Lady each day. To love.

And to realize in the end that it is but our Lord Jesus pulling at the thread of our lives, that it is but He Who is with us and Who loves us so much Who is tugging at our weary, wandering hearts - "come to Me, and I will give you rest".

And that that is the answer we've been looking for - the Change to master change!

When we come awake to our calling, we soon realize the Voice Who calls us to our greatest freedoms - and to the Christian, as it is for me - Jesus Christ is the Change to master change...

Only Him can set me free.
---<--@

 

Today we had our EMHC Lenten Recollection.

I am proud to be with my brother lay ministers from our Shrine. Apart from preparing my soul for the last stretch of our Easter journey this year, I also learned so much today.

We tackled core concepts from  the Exhortation of Pope Francis, "Evangelii Gaudium", about the New Evangelization. It is a very relevant theme in today's world indeed. And many are the things the Laity may expound from it.

But the central spirit, in my own opinion, is that the Church needs to transform - not with the world - but against it. That we may as Nations be helped to persevere, overcome and together prevail against the challenges of this new age. And the joy of knowing we have...

Finally, let me share here what a brother EMHC today shared: To be a Christian without "Christ" is to be just an "ian"; an "i am nothing".

True indeed, Christ is the Vine and we are from among all the Nations, the branches - intended by God the Father to bear for each other, human fruit - edible and good everlasting.

Let us know that this world is diverse and that our Catholicity understands implicitly that the world is such a place - that we may not all be Catholics or Christians in our own places in time - but the most important thing these days is not that we are all the same - but that we flourish in our distinctions!

So let the past be the past.

Mabuhay, I love you all.

Salutation #176

THINK about time...
how we both have it and we don't.



(Time is a Nearness)

Starshine, listen -

Time as it was intended
and time as we humans have intended it
are two very different things -

Time in its entirety is an ascent,
it is a shedding away, it is an unveiling
and has everything to do with right remembrance
and the power of Truth -

BUT
time as a human construct is a rote and linear thing,
meant to insert upon the unimaginably vast folds of time,
a limit and a count to make it more comprehensible
to our littleness...

- selah -

When we humans allow ourselves
to become unwitting slaves to our own constructs
we place our human limits within these artificial limits
we have likewise originally placed for ourselves
in order to gain a knowledge of the wonder of greater things
humility then turns to pride - and time for each of us -
becomes a measure of physical distance
instead of a measure of nearness
and of spirit brightness.

BUT
time is much more than just its segments
and our humanity, in all our littleness certainly,
though intended to ultimately be masters of time,
never were its Author nor its Source nor its Truth.

And in this thought, surely there is hope.
---<--@



The time referred to above is the time that does not exist - so...

Salutation #64

The color black is the color of hope. Green is the color of the perennial nature of hope.

For hope is upon the earth, in a constant state of subtle transformation, rising and falling as all things ascend to God, in steady cycles of loss and fulfillment.

When black is used to remember death, it is not used to signal the finality of death, but to remind us of the hope that is invested in death - for black is also the color of the expectation of life.

(Death)

All the death that we see

upon this world of earth and fire

- with our physical sight -

is a temporal death.

But there is a hidden death

- the second death -

the death of the soul of Man.

Of this hidden death,

the soul of Man implicitly knows and naturally fears

for it is the death of his life.

And though reason might oftentimes confuse the two,

we human beings should truly fear the death of the soul.

For this is the true death!

But temporal death is a transformation -

for those who value life to the point of giving it - everlasting life.

for those who hate life to the point of taking it - everlasting death.

So today,

we honor our brethren and sisters

who have passed away from life into everlasting life -

all the official Saints of our Holy Mother Church

but especially those Saints of God who are known to God alone

each those Saints who are especially chosen by the LORD

to become known to each of us alone - as our special friends -

who are all those who are victorious against death.

So let us express our love for them today

all our victorious dead - let us remember them

- solemnly and meaningfully and sincerely -

every beloved one of ours - all our family and friends -

who has passed away from the sight of our eyes

into the quickening Light of the Vision of the LORD;

all those who loved us with the love of God till the end.

Let us rest assured

in the knowledge of the faith

that they are well and that we shall one day

be one with them in God and in all truth - forever.

For life is life and death is death.

- selah -

Glorified be God - forever -

in all His Angels and in all His Saints, alleluia.

---<--@

Everybody have a safe and meaningful All Saints' Day 2011.

Glory to God the Father!

Adoration to Jesus Christ!

Alleluia, peace be unto our nation

and peace be unto all our nations;

good will to all men and women of Peace.

To lose Love is to die.

20111028

Salutation #62

I am hopeful not because there are words.

I am hopeful because there are people with listening ears

and hearts who are able to hear the meaning to the words...

(Nations Like Trees)

Wisdom is in the people -

(and discernment is in the Responsible State)

if we remain in ourselves, a nation united

- through thick or thin - by and by,

our Republic shall be enlightened by the peace we profess as a people

and our leadership enabled - inasmuch -

as we are empowered by the unity of our peace.

The more mature the peace we profess as a nation,

the better the age of our Country in time.

The deeper the roots of our citizenship is planted

upon the earth - far into forever -

as one Republic undertaking,

the more trusted shall be its fruits.

For nations are like trees

and the labor of Country is the labor of bringing the promise

of our nation into full fruition - for all Filipinos.

It is a labor of cultivation and nurture.

This is why I am passionate about the peace process.

Everything in this day and age - as far as our Philippines is concerned -

is invariably tied to its success and its success is likewise tied

to the greater forces that are now driving our world

toward interdependent community.

For there are many rooms and many trees...

---<--@

One lineage of hope - 7,107 islands strong -

"In the longer view of things, divisions don't make a difference, unity does."

You know, I used care a lot about where we've been - about one's upbringing, how one looks, how one sounds, what's in a name, from which school, from what religion, from what province, and from what family, and from what social class...

Now, what I truly care about the most is where we are ALL going.

I have awoken to the truth - that -

there can only be one Philippines for ALL Filipinos!

---<--@

An Accounting of Time

Time is not distance for time is distant

only to those with distant hearts.

Nor is distance a hindrance to our hearts

that in the timeless, beholds and is beheld.

PEACE, I salute you.

---<--@

Our dearest Starshine -

Let me teach you
the way in which thy heart
does perceive the idea of numbers
and the concept of its operation
in those realms where
the mathematics of physicality
and the limits of its reality
in terms temporal
and in measures finite
does never and shall never agree
with the reality of things within.

Because the substance of thy soul

is the abode of the timeless
that in terms eternal
and in measures infinite
are an accounting of thy heart
that amidst thy comings and goings
perceive things as they are
like a vision of love forever
in moments standing still
and not as they seem to be
amidst the darkness of things
that appear and disappear
with the rise and fall
of the tides of exile time.

One is not the beginning

for one is time neither begun
nor is one perceived to have an end
because one is an infinity
and two is not two things together
but two things that become one
for three are not three things apart
but two things made one whole one
by the Love that visits
each our longing for itself.

And so when you shall perceive

each of thy friendships, dear Starshine,

(e.g. family and friends, above all conjugal love,

as well as all natures of relationships.)

among all truly human relationships
you shall think only of one.

And when you shall seek to perceive
each our own expressions of hope
in the sharing and the bearing of Sacred Life
(e.g. complementarity of the sexes, the freedom of thy gifts, etc.)

you shall think only of two.

And when you shall seek to perceive
those things born to thy own heart's longing
and felt through the beauty of remembrances

(e.g. the creative ideal - cooperation with the Creator,

Peace and the labors of peace, etc.)
awakening to thy slow awakening dream
you shall think only of three.

And ever be aware that the medium

of thy constant reality from within
is an emerging continuum of gratitude
spread as luminous stars upon thy spirit
bursting with the joy of living life
born from things that cleave as truth
unto that vast universe in thy soul
that make you think of the many
but return you always to one -

the One, O my Starshine,

the LORD!

The one Giver above His gifts.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Patient Perseverance

Remembrance: The Ages of Country

20101201

Kindred Spirits

They say, my fellow Filipino compatriots, that blood is thicker than water. But what they say these days is not complete. The truth has become obscured in the darkness. Because while it is true that blood is thicker than water, water runs deeper than blood.

When we were born, for the first few months of our lives, we were - each of us - citizens of all creation, seen as well as unseen. Of this same truth is established the bonds of nations, water bonds that run deeper than blood ties. For we were when we were yet too young to remember, we were each a citizen of all nations.

In the haste and the confusion of daily living, water bonds become quite easy to forget. Indeed, they take an amount of effort and grace to constantly remember.

But it is essential to the practice of peace and good will to bear these greater citizenships always in mind and heart. For these are the bonds awaken us to the reality of the greater good; these are the relationships that quicken our souls to the willing service and care of the good of others more than ourselves.

For as human beings, we all belong to the All of creation, seen and unseen, through bonds of Sacred Life and as Christians, these water bonds are further fortified by our common baptism in the LORD, our God - the one, living God of all the living.

Blood and Water

---<--@

Life and Time

When times become uncertain, as these times are, we must always bear in mind: Time has an arrow because life has an order and a purpose.

So when we observe the Sabbath, in the day of our public worship, let our minds and our hearts be constantly mindful: Life belongs to God, time belongs to Man. Life is sacred and time exists for Sacred Life.

The Arrow of Time

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.