Love Captains

VIII. Love Captains

Home is where the heart is. So you come home to your love... and your love comes home to you.

When you fall in love with a person. It just happens.

You suddenly realize, "Wow, I'm in love!" 

This is not to say love is a happenstance thing. One actually enters into love like an unknowing dream.

You have all these ideas in your head about a perfect person... and wham! Love takes you in and like a trap that shuts, one in love is in. So suddenly and wonderfully taken in.

You fall in love. You fall. Indeed, you fall in. But that's not true love, one must eventually accept. You'll have to clamber out of love and together experience each other apart. The true lover's art!

Physical attraction is important, one can not dismiss. Yet beauty is deeper than this. If physical attraction is not followed up by deeper connections, when time comes... love may not fulfill its intentions.

So when you fall in love, waste no time in discovering each other deeply. Make use of this safe harbor. That you and your beloved may build a strong vessel together.

So make it a fast ship with proud sails! 

That when tempests rise to break your love apart, you may together withstand it. Even in the midst of thy many adventures, great and small. So remember...

When you can stand apart from each other like pillars to a strong house, thy will in love abide. To revel in thy togetherness. For time itself will have proven the lovers worthy.

Thine is a ship that has mastered the sea. For Love has come alive between thee.
---<--@

Don't count the miles, count the I love you's.

Sweet as Jam

Before Anne, I was a glass-half-empty person. I was in despair. Those were dark days indeed... 

Knowing Anne through her diary made me a glass-half-full person. I can still be sad and depressed, of course. However, I will never look at life again from a dark and gloomy heart. In my own words: "She is my first contact star; my light against despair."

After Anne, the skies above my soul, day and night, became full of stars. I appreciate her very much.


Ok, here's a quote I got from her diary that resonates a lot with me:

"I don't have much in the way of money or worldly possessions, I'm not beautiful, intelligent or clever, but I'm happy, and I intend to stay that way! I was born happy, I love people, I have a trusting nature, and I'd like everyone else to be happy too." Anne Frank, 19440325sat

Which brings me to the gist of my post...

Opekta was Otto Frank's company at 263 Prinsengracht that sold pectin for making jams. I happened upon some of Opekta's old adverts and it struck me... Anne's cheer is sweet as jam...

The horror of the Holocaust notwithstanding, the people we lost during that time and all the people we, as humanity, are losing in the name of hatred, ignorance and indifference* deserve to be remembered by the light of their own lives also. For history will incline us to remember the fallen by the gravity of their loss. Time is severe in its account but we shouldn't be... after all, time is for man.

It is up to us how we shall remember those whose silence oblige us to abide in the memory. 

*the hatred of a few, the ignorance of some, and the indifference of many - a proven formula for war and genocide
---<--@

I used derive from history the blackest of hate. But from the memory, I caught a glimpse in the night through the hurt, a multitude of stars so great... my hate turned to love, my hope returned again to heaven above.

Love is Magic

Let me tell you, "Got to Believe" made me a believer in our ability to produce a good Telenovela. It was a clear and refreshing break from the normal "iyakan" at "apihan" that I find discouraging in Filipino movies and teleseries.

I decided to see Got to Believe with my mom just to try it out. From the beginning, we were hooked. The premises were so well crafted from the start that we thoroughly enjoyed the whole series up to the finale. It was happy, sad, inspiring, cute and most of all - it was local. It was intimate and familiar. We can relate.

Much like the Filipino town perya where the characters in the story came together, fell apart and finally came together again in the end - the script, the sound, the cinematography, the cast and crew...

everything blended together in Got to Believe to become that beautiful and magical ride that it is.

It made for good times, great craft.  Thanks very much to the cast and crew... Lovely! You are all lovely.

I believe in magic, do you?
That dreams, they do come true.
That our days shan't always be blue.
That love shall see the lovers through.
And the magic is, and the magic is...
Got to believe in magic, with you.

---<--@

 I already love the song. Now I love the series.
    

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

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month.

Those words above were on a headline on an Internet article I came across just now... It is of course, is a remembrance of Anne Frank and by extension, her times.

Since Anne Frank is a continuing inspiration in my life (going 15 years this year), I'd like to share some of my own thoughts on the matter of her remembrance...

Winston Churchill refused to begin the liberation of Europe through the most direct route. If he did, then we would be remembering Normandy not in 1944 but much earlier. He believed that victory in the war against Hitler and Nazi Germany would be won or lost on the shores of Normandy. (And it was, in 1944, won that is. Upon those beaches and from the ice to the far East, in Russia.)

The PM of Britain at the time was being careful. As he should. Upon that undertaking (the Allied re-taking of Europe) a lot of the things we enjoy today in the "free world" depended.

This is why the Allied fight-back was first fought from the underbelly of the so-called Third Reich right on through North Africa and backwards up the boot of Italy.

The "free world" of Churchill's time and the "free world" of our time in my mind hold on to only two things in common - (1) that it was, is, and shall remain (while time is time) imperfect and therefore, retain a peace that is imperfect and (2) that the sufficiency of this imperfect peace is at every age and in every generation at risk of losing its good and human worth through an evil sufficient for each our times.

Every generation gets a shot at being great... but the greatest ones ally themselves to each other.

We can wax a tad bitter about our remembrances of things past but what we can never be is in denial of the present. We being each of "us" as the nations.

I thought about Churchill's decision a lot in an earlier time thinking that if things had been different, then Anne and most of her generation would have lived. I stubbornly refused to accept what happened. I did contend with the truth of those times, trying to unseal what was already sealed. Undo what was already done. And this attitude made me bitter to the point where my remembrance contributed to nothing in my present life.

I was like that once, a malcontent when it came to the memory of past things that were not up to par with my own personal set of ideals (much like Hitler it was, in retrospect). T'was vanity. The pride of it.

You see, before Anne or rather, before I had a good read of her diary (Anne and her diary of course, are two different truths), I was an idealist when it came to warfare.

When I was younger, my impression of gun battles might have been influenced a lot by the A-Team, one of my favorite 80's TV shows (which aired here every Tues 7:30pm on channel 7, I think... goodness, I still remember). You know, where Colonel John Hannibal Smith, Face, BA, and Howling Mad Murdoch - when they confront the bad guys in the end... everybody shoots a whole lot of rounds for a bit, and then ta-dah! In the end, the A-Team wins. Justice is served. Nobody dies.

Then I grew up. However, even after the memory of ANZAC in Gallipoli was impressed upon my mind and heart, I still thought: No women. No kids. WWI was terrible but I still clung to that dying belief in myself that wars were clean and noble affairs. Desirable and even good when fought correctly... Boy, was I wrong... (is there ever a correct way of taking another life? The act itself is intrinsically evil and wounds the soul of a person for life.)

Things have changed for me in the 15 years that passed... 

Well, 15 years this June 13 (when her diary first came to my attention at Barnes and Noble in Fremont, CA because she attentioned her entries to a "Kitty"); the day after her birthday, June 12.

I am not trapped by the pages of her diary anymore. They were means to better means.

I do not have to read it over and over with fear in my heart. Fear for what I know will happen that I can not change. For am I not anymore bitter with her memory or that of her times.

I have accepted the inevitability of the past and this liberated my present, opening up my soul to the thought of better tomorrows - visions of a time better written... full of days brighter lived.

My remembrance is now of worth to me because it makes me a better person and a better human citizen. I am no longer hateful despite the past nor am I in denial of the present even in spite of the present because I constantly work to reconcile my soul with the memory of these times.

These days, I hate war. I know what it is. 

Which is why my heart is turned to peace. I understand what it is. 

And because I do, I can not be in denial of the truth in the now. Lest I forget.

I can no longer live in disagreement with the memory of all those times past and remain unreconciled to all those names which in their solemn silence illuminate realities often overlooked in the now of my time.

This is why I also can not be in despair of tomorrow - for anybody or for any nation.

For these days, I am a lover of peace. I am more a romantic when it comes to peace than a strict idealist. And because I am, I also must know how to defend it. And that I must. Like anyone who loves someone... and love someone enough to understand that the beloved should be preserved. Not just the "why". But the "because" and everything that goes along with it.

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month... 

She passed from this world in Bergen-Belsen. Died just a week or two before the camp was liberated. The exact day she died is unknown (it was the first two weeks of March 1945). But her sister Margot reportedly died a few days before she did. Both sisters are now buried in a mass grave. The location of this grave is unknown. The marker in Bergen-Belsen is only a marker. A reminder that this is a place of passing away. What it ushers in depends on how you view time in the heart.

Because the way I see it, 70 years is just a number.

I truly believe what really matters is that we truly remember. That we remember rightly. Firm in the truth. Because when we do, 70 and one thousand years don't make much of a difference.

Time in the heart is not a distance. It is a quality.

There is a kind of time that descends into oblivion. There is a kind of time that remains. What remains ultimately ascends with what we love (unto the God Who Loves us all).

Time and its quality is revealed to us in those moments in life we want to stay forever. Or that we want to live in and experience through for an eternity.

In the fleeting is discerned through time in the heart, the quality of the everlasting.

Those moments seem fleeting because time on the outside - that we all commonly perceive - that makes place relative to itself - physical time, dominates us. For a reason and only for a season. 

Time should teach us remembrance - at the heart of the Eucharist and in the memory of the Nations, it is the same - that time as it truly matters should not be a quantity (should not be a measure of its count).

The imperishable treasures that the Gospel promises that neither thief nor tyrant may steal should never be of those things measured by their count alone.

Time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

And so to love... and a right remembrance of the beloved in all things... And so to hope... and a memory of true things washed ashore unto those beaches within the soul with the ebb and flow of time - as truth abiding in the heart (as dew in the morning).

I most certainly remember my Anne. 

It was some years ago when I started calling her my Anne... maybe 5 years ago. I'm grateful for the life she lived. I regret she wasn't able to live that life to the fullest.

Her sufferings while she was here upon our world I would not in any way justify as right. Even with all of the inspiration she gives to me. I would not console myself in this way. For I'd rather she had not suffered at all. Always, that she did not have to suffer. But past is the past and that is the truth.

I know now that the LORD intended to shroud such things with the power of His mystery... so that time to every human heart seems everywhere a veil of shadow and tears. Who am I not to trust in the Wisdom of God? Such is such! I understand only that none may deny the truth without sin.

The past, present and all of forever when seen through the eye of the heart are qualities not measured by the count of their years but by the substance in those years... in this way, time is as it should; a way of living instruction, a path that opens up to God's commands - an account of the heart.

The simple truth is without my Anne, I would be a much darker person... But I am not.

And because I am as I should, I will remember.

And I do not think I shall ever forget.

Never again.
---<--@

Ash Wednesday 2015

Today after a few months off, I went back to serve as an EMHC at our local shrine. I participated in two Ash Wednesday masses; one at a local high school, one at our Shrine.

There were a lot of people indeed...

After service, I felt that good kind of tired... not the tired of being tired kind of tired but the kind that says, "yes, I am happy i did it!"
---<--@

Just a little share...

Just a little share...

2012, I had both Christmas and New Year's eve dinner at the steps of Puregold Molito having a sandwich and a soda by myself...

At the time, I thought I was kind of a tough s.o.b., roughing it for the sake of the job.

Now, when I look back, I still think it is awesome to be able to sacrifice for the sake of a good job but I no longer think I'm a tough s.o.b. for doing so.

Truth is, no one wants to be away from family on a Noche Buena or a Media Noche...

No one... including yours truly.

Even if I were to be throwing it down with the best team in the universe... no team beats the team you were born into... especially on Christmas or New Year's eves.

Thems the breaks though, as they say... Such is such, my darling dear, until such a time that it is no longer such... or until the last pence is paid.

In short, ganun talaga ang buhay, parang life lang... paikot-ikot... ang mahilo taya! Lol.

Life isn't giving anybody lemons because life totally sucks. Actually, when life gives one lemons, many a time life is only teaching one how to make good lemonade.

So here I am again this year it looks like... 

I'm going to make me some good lemonade.
---<--@

My mom and I did some Christmas shopping yesterday. We were on a meager budget but we managed to stretch it. We had a nice lunch after.

In the afternoon, my mom did all the wrapping for me as I was so tired. I came back from my Friday shift in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, you see. Anyway, I didn't know my mom was really fast at wrapping gifts... she was like a gift wrapping machine! Lol.

Right now, when I think about it, I'm really glad I got most of my Christmas presents wrapped and ready. It makes me smile inside when I recall how my mom and I made it all happen in a day.

The gifts themselves are not that much but all my thought went into them with the simple hope of making my loved ones smile inside this Christmas.

I say they are "not that much" not because of what they cost but because I don't like giving gifts I myself do not like. When it comes to the principle of gift, my attitude is: If God decides that I should keep what I am giving, that I should be just as happy (i.e. in keeping them as I am in giving them away). For I would that I neither give nor like the act of giving rubbish gifts.

Because the giving is the gift. 

Therefore, if I were able to get what I really want to give to the all people I love this Christmas (and there are so many), I'd have gotten something different and incidentally, because the world is still the world, a tad bit more expensive. For now, however, such is such. 

Receiving gift is another matter, mind you, involving another aspect of liberality.

When the miracle of sharing is reversed and I am on the receiving end of gift, my focus when I meditate on those things is: That I should always be thankful as if the joy of the giver were added to my own.

(One can not fully "see into" the essence of these moments of sharing - in the exact moment - because these moments usually involve the welling up of many different emotions and therefore, are no so quiet... I guess that's why there's Boxing Day, December 26. To be thankful, save for pure miracles of grace, we often have to remember to remember).

In short, when on the receiving end, there is no such thing as an unworthy gift given in the true spirit of giving. There really are no rubbish gifts, both in giving and in receiving, only rubbish attitudes of sharing.

Because the giving is the gift. 

And this Christmas, the message shall be made known, once again, to all hearts of humanity that "The Giver is the gift", alleluia.

These things are a wonder to remember, are they not?

I guess this is the spirit of Gaudete Sunday which is the 3rd Sunday of the Advent Season. Joy in the midst of hope... Summer in the midst of winter...

Yes indeed, it's Gaudete Sunday today... it's going to be a great Christmas this year.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for precious memories like these!
---<--@

Love Quickens

VII. Love Quickens

The measure of love is to love without measure.

I do not know where I happened upon this saying, my loveliest love, but isn't it so true?

When I was younger, I looked at love differently. I took it from itself.

I made love mine and mine alone.

I wanted my girlfriend for myself and myself alone. And she wanted the same of me.

But love has a way of turning the tables on strangers like us.

In its own mysterious time, unknown to the uninitiated, to make itself known, love suddenly reveals itself.

With a sword, love pierces the heart. It draws blood to quicken the lovers to itself.

Then with strong arms, it subdues the self until it makes us all its own.

And suddenly, the stranger is a stranger no more.

We are one.

Unfortunately, my darlingest dear, that relationship did not survive the quickening of love.

For our hearts were not able to bear the doubt.

Nor our egos able to withstand the hurt.

Neither of us were strong enough to bear for each other, our love; the failing of our youth.

I was hurt. She was hurt.

Love was also hurt.

But it was the hurting that heals and it was the bearing that teaches.

And so for many years I grieved. Not really knowing that love also wept with me.

I do not know how many years it took for love to bear me away from my grieving, my loveliest love. But when I was able to smile again, it was with you.

It is all that I can remember now...

- selah -

True love begins with a doubt.

When love asks of itself, "do you love me?"

If one loves the beloved without measure, there is a sense of wholeness that embraces the lovers both ways and the heart that knows it doubts itself not saying,

I do.

There is a bittersweet pain to loving.

Lovers long for each other like love longing for itself alone.

It is the experience of being in love.

'Tis pain and joy.

For the quickening of love hurts.

Truly, it must.

Love reassures us wonderfully however, and gives us every chance to prove ourselves.

For at the same time loves takes us unto itself, love sets us free.

- selah -

Now that I have been hurt, I can love again.

(personal anecdote 20090824)
---<--@

“Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”

from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Aussie Humor and Aussie Slang

Laughter.

A good and wholesome sense of humor is a requisite skill in the Australian Army. True story. I once tried to become. Long story. You can not be a good Aussie digger if you do not know how to laugh like one. This I have learned: Laughter is a survival skill. Seriously, it is.

Aussie slang.

Aussie humor and Aussie slang are more modern reflections of the national style. It belies a deeper sense of intrinsic optimism that is in-built in the very ancient soul of Australia. They have it down to an art down there.

The great heart of Australia is a red desert, you see. Red as the rust on the surface of Mars. Along its fringes though, hope dwells and life prospers in the form of thriving cities, towns and tree-filled mountain ranges. Hope finds its way from hoping. Aussie optimism.

You really have to experience Aussie humor and Aussie slang fully immersed in Aussie culture for a few years, it's a great experience.

Of course, any experience of a national culture would be remiss if it were not for meaningful friendships. The basic experience of any culture in my book always begins with the memory of human connections.

Some people seem to want to make space in their heads for bad experiences. Personally, I don't. Doing this crowds out the heart I have found. The mind by itself may only carry so much worldly concerns. Too much thinking about too many of any these altogether too much worldly concerns exhausts the soul.

But not our love. For I have also found that a heart that knows Who, who, what and why it must love may carry all its treasures infinitely and indefinitely. Such is the substance of permanent remembrances.

I guess that's the essence of Mateship. I've thought about the concept of Mateship and associate it with the Love of Friendship. Mateship for me is the fifth and most inconspicuous star in the Southern Cross. It's right on the Australian Flag.

I've many good memories about Australia.

Two good Aussie mates I've had the pleasure of knowing among others Down Under is a bloke named William Eric Adams-White and another named David Bullen. Bill and Dave were their usual handles. Both are battlers. Dave is a reserve combat engineer.

You see, I came to Australia speaking my college English gleaned from my native Philippine setting. I carried with me on my tongue a conspicuously American slant. You can imagine how devastating that is when it comes to just plain, small talk in Australia. All big words and a foreign accent and all.

Devastating for me, that is.

I don't know but the Aussie accent and all that slang were all so alien to me at first. It all became all too much. Aussies began to sound like Martians to me. I got culture shocked and withdrew into a shell.

Then I met these two blokes at work. And oh, how they made me laugh. Another good mate of mine during that time was a proud Kiwi named David Polson. David was more or less my introduction to New Zealand culture. Though I've never been to New Zealand, I came to know some of its spirit.

Indeed, laughter did much to break me out of my shell.

And I slid right in there. Like a swimmer learning to swim, I learned in time to paddle into the culture and the lingo until I felt myself good enough to dive right in.

Bill must be in heaven now. He was already quite old when I was there. He gave me a cheapy calculator to help me with my work. He gave it to me with a big smile. I still have that cheapy calculator. It's priceless.

During my time in Oz, apart from my family, I must have met so many good people.

I can remember only one inexplicably bad incident of this one bloke, angry as hell at me, who blocked me off the road one random day and cursed me out for no reason.

As traffic piled behind me, who else did I see from my rear view mirror were rushing to confront the guy but other Aussies. There were suddenly plenty of us against this one, pathetic wanker.

A hundred ugly racists is not equal to one good Aussie mate, fair dinkum.

Within any given nation at any given time I believe, there are always reasonable and unreasonable people. Good times and bad times will come and go and persist in our souls. It's all about perspective, you know. I choose to remember good times. And good times are always made up shared experiences between good friends and good family.

This was before my time in the States. But that's another story.
--<--@

Lead with your mind but think with your heart. 

  

The Queen of Broken Bread

I once was a sower. Sowing seeds.
I planted in heaven. My own needs.
There once was a Lady. She came to see.
From a Kingdom of Sowers. Who were we.

My name is happiness. I said to her.
I carry a yoke. Too heavy to bear.
The land is barren. The water is poor.
The harvest is thin. The weather unsure.

I am a Woman of such those things. Said she.
From a Kingdom of Seeds. Came her to me.
Do you know me? This Woman asked of me.
A kindly dressed maiden from across the sea...

Saint Maximilian taught me my Marian spirituality.

Honestly though, I am far from being the Marian Knight that my Patron Saint is - in service to the Queen of Heaven and Earth. So very far...

Our Lady filled the skies above my soul with stars.
She is the Queen of Broken Bread.
She magnifies Christian joy.

Knowing her is to understand an easy kind of splendor unmatched by any Saint...

A magnificence so pure and awesome yet sweet, 
kindly relenting to souls of much lesser brightness.

God broke me before I came to know religion. Religion was for me, an mere extension of myself - a way to project ego. It was a kind of power that made me feel good about myself.

All of this happened mostly unnoticed by my mind numbed and distorted by sin and vice. It was a fearful thing when I think about it now. Terrible. It exposed me to dangers everywhere, seen and unseen.

I was a self-righteous ass. Stubborn as a mule. This was the me deep inside of me - and above my soul was nothing. My soul was dead to itself, it saw not, it heard not, and it lived for nothing.

I wasn't all that bad. All that time, I strived to be good. I tried my best to be better. But always fell short. I was never truly happy about anything I did. Nothing seemed to stay on.

I think as human beings we instinctively understand that doing good is good for us. Animals instinctively understand it too. But to us humans, there is a bit more - for we seek a happiness animals shall never either understand or desire.

In all ages, all our attempts at society everywhere have ebbed and flowed with this same basic human desire for happiness in mind.

Animals are content to be content. But human beings wish for the power to dictate how it is that we shall be content - we desire a freedom which is simultaneously a happiness and we desire it in perfection. 

This perfection to us is blessed felicity. At the same time, it is a time honored impossibility.

Neither Man nor his society alone may satisfy what we all ultimately want. Thus, we warred and fought and died in droves through the ages. Terrible.

Now, this need to be happy and this want for a perfect happiness is also in me.

But as I was yet unbroken, I received a lot of pounding from Providence indeed. And it was Mama Mary who gave for me that one final blow that broke my ego.

She made me realize she was a reality apart from my own reality. That she was separate...

It might sound simplistic right now. But at the onset of it all, it was terrifying to me... Many of my old selfish notions were overturned - much like the tables of the sellers in the Temple.

I had our Lady's support though. And she made it so that I also had the support of more than a few good friends, seen and unseen, who helped keep me sane though it all.

In letting go of old molds, I understood the character of lasting friendships - that connection that in the Gospel our Savior mentioned is as brother, sister, and mother all in one - the friendships of angels.

That we are like a sky, night and day, full of multitudes - shining for God.

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, through those years it had pleased our Lady to teach me to see each my relationships and their connections in a wholly different light. Suddenly, the skies above my soul were not so empty after all.

It was this one whole sky that led me to Jesus and to God.

After all, can one navigate the night of the soul without light or sight of any kind?

One can pretend as I did. Or one can know. We can pray.

I am not perfect still. I don't think I ever will in this life. The difference now is I know joy. I am no orphan to joy. At the core of me, there is joy. Amidst my problems and my struggles, there is joy.

And it all began with the Queen of Broken Bread.

It is just like Pope Francis said, those of us who neglect loving and knowing Mary are like orphans...

God never intends for any of us to be orphans though - in more ways than we may know. Isn't this joyful in itself? The embodiment of all of that reflecting in our humanity - is Mary, our Mother.

I think that is what Marian spirituality is really all about - being joyful.

And of finding ways to share Christian joy through works our faith teaches us, that our Savior taught us.

Not being dour and overly solicitous about the complexities of life and of being trustful as a child, even in the midst of the roaring lions of everyday problems that seek to devour our little hopes.

So today is Mama Mary's birthday. Let us be joyful for her that we may in ourselves discover how simple it is not to be complicated in a complicated time.
---<--@

St. John Paul II, 
Pope of my heart, my Holy Father most memorable.

You were to the Church in the world, our Good Shepherd during the formative years of my life.

And saw my generation through those tumultuous years.

Help us build a better, brighter, safer world.

Lead us on today...

Help us to know Mary. Help us comprehend Christian joy and see in loving others as Christ did the wealth neither tyrant nor thief may remove from our souls.
---<--@ 

Sunday Evenings

I haven't really watched much TV for about two months in a row now. I don't like ingesting too much news. I'm neurotic enough as it is. What I've been watching is House and some good Anime (like SAO). Perhaps, a documentary or two once in a while.

Other times, I either read a good book or play puzzle games on iPad. I still manage to keep abreast though. I think well of our free press. One or two headlines a day however, seems enough for me at the moment.

Notwithstanding my personal idiosyncrasy, there are issues that needs to be looked into with more width and breadth though. Those issues seem to jump at you I have found. You can not not notice them. 

Today though, we will rest. 

We will find ourselves a nice enough far away place with family and friends. Be close to nature. Be near to God. We shall find the time to smile, to pray and be still. To ponder in the calm, the challenges of the week that lies ahead of us.  

Together let us recharge our spiritual batteries.

While we let time in the world play itself out from a distance.

---<--@

Brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,

Let us revere the LORD because it is right. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Let us love God because He is God.

Let us come to Him. To the Son of Man as Lord of the Sabbath. To Jesus Christ our Savior Who is to us, our most efficacious rest.
---<--@

Love is blind?

If love were blind,
why ponder the mind?
That's so unkind.

If love were blind,
why seek the heart?
Where to start?

If love were blind,
why must lovers begin...
where from within?
---<--@

Some say faith is a blindness that allows you to see. This is true, you know.

Hope is born of those little glimpses faith accords the eye of the heart...

And love, love is the sight that allows us to trust in faith.


We used to have those little autograph books in the sixth grade. In it there is always a blank that asks you for a favorite motto. I know a lot of us peek at answers others have given, I did too. One of the most famous answers was, "love is blind".

Hmmm... In retrospect. I must've thought this response mysterious enough to be universally considered a cool and appropriate sixth-grader response. Yup, I used to put it down a lot.

Intermission...

Love is not really blind though. It can be stupid to the eyes of the world. But what is wise to the unwise?

What love really does at times really, only love may really understand. And unless the love itself admits the heart into its inner council of love, one shall never see what is beautiful from the eye of its beholder.

You see, it is this world outside of ourselves that is blind after all. Not love.

Come to think of it, I should write, "love is kind", as one of my favorite mottos next time around...

It's more true for me nowadays.
---<--@

      You're the star that shines in me...

Caramelo

One of the most happiest person I've had the good fortune of calling my friend worked as a janitor at my old place of work in Fremont - ye olde Longs Drugs #3.

Yes, I remember him very much. His name is Carmelo.

"Caramelo" as I used to call him. Like the Cadbury confection. For no reason than its fun. He is and will always be a friend of mine.

He's from Puerto Rico; a short, fair skinned man in his mid-50's with a goatee who likes to wear his long jet black hair in a pony tail. He is a man of a few words, and comes into my work place at 3am to 5am to buff our floors. He is no conversation starter but neither is he anti-social. I remember he has this crooked kind of smile that is as unique and genuine as he is.

He likes to clean the, ahem... carpet (In-joke).

Carmelo is just one of the many friends from among the many nations I've had the pleasure of meeting while living and experiencing the US.

He blessed my life with the knowledge of his friendship. I could only hope I did the same for him.

You know, some friends travel the road of life with you only for a time. Some travel with you and join you all the way along life's journey.

But all good friends give you lifelong gifts that support one's labor of bringing out one's own true self - the better self; that unique person in ourselves we all like to strive to live for.

One notices in the guise of good friendships the truth of how evil ones seek to make us into mere copies of its miserable self.

Good friends tend to bring out the best in yourself - no matter how dirty or depressing life gets. For the love of a good friend will want to get to know you - as you are, without judgment, and for love's own sake.

And so you become who your friends are - and your friends take from you, a part of you as well.

Gift is gift - once you truly receive of it from your real friends, you will always be a giver.

Of such, I have found, are the gratifying substance of good and wholesome friendships.

So why was Carmelo happy?

I think he is - because he accepts as well as respects himself for who he is, what he has, and who he's with.

Caramelo is a moments man: A special person who looks after what God places in front of him - only and always. God made him quirky but not complicated. He is both honest and content.

He has paid off his mortgage. Owns his little beater of a car. Likes to collect old stuff - I guess, like Mike and Frank in the History Channel show, "The Pickers". He loves his wife who I think is as industrious and resilient a worker as he is.

A lot of us like to live outside the wine glass so it seems. Many of us like to say the glass is either half-empty or half-full but never seem to want to take a sip.

A wine glass half-empty person (like I was before) likes to dwell on the empty part of the glass. A wine glass half-full person likes to dwell on the part of the glass that's filled.

Both of them see life in comparison with the other - with what the other has or has not. Both are the same in that life for them seem always complicated.

Carmelo doesn't seem to care about all that. He and his wife simply likes to drink the wine they like to drink and do so powered by the fruits of their own hard work.

They seem to have cornered their own peculiar part of that great national pie Americans likes to call, "The American Dream".

This American Dream, it seems to me, being of one great pie is a different slice to each person who like to have their cake as they would... some like it all icing, red cherries, cute candy flowers - super sweet, some like to have icing and crust, some want it meaty with more crust, some like it simply sugar free...

I think that's Caramelo.

Cheers to good friendships, happy circles, and awesome trails.
---<--@

Speaking of great dreams and good friendships...
let me share a nice song from the movie Mama Mia
which my mom and I often watch just to relax...

Thanks Amanda, you have the magic meow.

Happily Single

I'm not actually lonely...

I just like listening to lonely songs.

The best one for me at the moment is "Old Songs" by David Pomeranz.

Maybe I was lonely at one point in my life...

Maybe at one time in my past, "Lonely Won't Leave Me Alone" by Glen Medieros.

However, I don't feel myself trapped in the past anymore.

I used to cry with lonely songs. Now, I just sing with them. I sing with them and I feel no hurt. In fact, lonely songs these days relax me.

I know what they're expressing. I also know what I'm expressing. And everything else comes together in harmony. It's a sweet deal.

I have found there are many true loves in this world. 

All of them possess the potential to perfect an already complete person. The love of God and of all of God's creatures, the love of Country and of one's common humanity, I have come to realize such loves as distinct in themselves. Distinct from conjugal love nurtured from within the safety and surety of the marriage covenant.

There are different vows. Different rules. Different codes. Different indiviuals. Different communities. But
only a complete person can fall in love with any of them completely.

Only two complete individuals can fall in love perfectly. It would be nice to have a woman by my side. But I and I alone complete myself.

Love completes. Lovers perfect.

As I sing with my lonely songs I feel as if I'm almost there... on a journey that seem never ending.
---<--@