Thanksgiving 2012

During my time in America,
Thanksgivings always felt magical...



In a land as diverse as her peoples,
there's something universally appealing about gratitude
that brings all these dreamers together...
even for one special night.

The spirit of thankfulness
brings into mind all the blessings that were
and so makes the heart ready to receive
all the blessings that are to be...

I guess that's why
I still believe in Thanksgiving,
for I am a dreamer as well...
and this fall 2012, well...

it refreshes the dream.
---<--@

Unconquered

DREAM, my precious Starshine,
and be thankful for the dreaming
more than the dream itself -

For as tomorrow remains unwritten
yet every hope is made secure
so trust you must in thy dreaming
more than in thy dream itself
for as the eagle soars with wings
knowing not how it must fly
so must your own freedom become
more than what can be held by hands:

Thy freedom, dear Starshine,
like thy dream and thy dreaming
is a thing held not by grip
but a thing beheld by thy releasing
for to hold freedom tightly
like it is to deny it's flight
is to lose it entirely.

For thy freedom walks
upon the unconquered grounds
and wills to take it's flight
untrammeled and untamed.

So seek of thy freedom,
my precious Starshine,
but in thy seeking know -
here and Now,
that freedom lives in the giving
like every dream is in the dreaming
for it is always in the giving
that we become free.
---<--@

20111022

The Soul Kitchen

"Virtue is currency."

---<--@

Today, I just want to sit down and tell you about this interesting article I've come across while browsing Yahoo News.

It's about Jon Bon Jovi's new charity restaurant.

It's called "The Soul Kitchen".

It's not your usual gourmet restaurant where you pay for food and service; money transfers hands, bellies are filled, wages are paid, profits are made and sometimes, just sometimes, experiences are had - good ones as well as bad.

In this establishment, virtue is currency.

There is a pre-condition: This pre-condition is that when you walk into Jon's new charity restaurant, you must walk out of that tired, old mentality that money makes the world go round. Because the new culture he has invested in The Soul Kitchen is that love and not money is currency and that gift and not gold rules the world.

I think it's riding on a wave - the wave of the future.

It is standing on a principle often neglected and overlooked in the daily pursuit of happiness that (1) one is made happy first in doing what one is doing, (2) money comes from the satisfaction of knowing one is happy, and (3) wealth comes from the understanding that life is more than just making money.

One realizes happiness first. Wealth comes after. Money is not wealth. And being wealthy is not the cause of happiness but the effect of it.

Nowadays in the United States, the brave home of that great American dream of happiness and Jon's home Country, the American dream is in a rut.

The Soul Kitchen grants its patrons a chance to release themselves from this rut.

Is the American dream dead? No, it is eclipsed. It needs redefinition in a way that returns it to its original form. It does not need to be reinvented.

Because the American dream is not a material dream (it never was) but a dream of freedom - freedom from undue fear, from inordinate want, from religious and political oppression, and from all forms of tyrannies that banish the truth and prevents the dreaming from coming true.

It is the same as the dreaming in our own Country. The only difference is that it is challenged by a set of circumstances that is peculiar to the American Republic. But the nature of the dream remains common in our peoples. This is why I can relate to Jon's vision.

Within the soul of that kindred nation, people are asking themselves about their dream or to be more precise, about their dreaming - their ability to dream - their ability to perceive the vision of themselves as one nation under Almighty God arrayed as a Republic faithful to its mission.

People are quietly asking themselves about their dreaming and this soul searching is evidenced by the nature of those current events now transpiring in America like the Occupy Wall Street movement and others like it (this national soul searching will surely have a significant effect on the tone of the Presidential campaigns leading up to the 2012 elections).

But today, my honorable compatriots, we shall not go that far.

I just want us to remain with the thought of Jon Bon Jovi's personal contribution to the greater dreaming of America - adding a little bit of salt to flavor the salty sea that is the reality of our common humanity - the Soul Kitchen.

I want us to learn from this and to be thankful.

The giving is the gift.

---<--@

Mabuhay ka, Jon Bon Jovi, at mabuhay po tayong lahat! God bless America and God bless the Philippines.

Real Stars

Some stars are fake, some are real -

of the fake ones, the heart can feel,

because of the real ones,

when one can tell -

it's their nearness to our earth

that makes it sell.

Real stars shine with a warmth

that often reaches us

and are full of genuine concern

but fake ones really don't connect

as much as we would like,

their light is not as warm and comforting

as far as the heart can tell

they could be as far from our earth

as heaven is to hell.

=^.^=

Here is the article completely reproduced (since if I post it as a link, it might get replaced by some other article) -

RED BANK, N.J. (AP) — In three decades as one of the world's biggest rock stars, Jon Bon Jovi has eaten in some of the world's best restaurants, savoring the best food the planet has to offer.

Yet there's no place he'd rather have dinner than The Soul Kitchen, a "pay-what-you-can" restaurant he and his wife Dorothea established in a former auto body shop near the Red Bank train station in central New Jersey.

The restaurant provides gourmet-quality meals to the hungry while enabling them to volunteer on community projects in return without the stigma of visiting a soup kitchen. Paying customers are encouraged to leave whatever they want in the envelopes on each table, where the menus never list a price.

The restaurant is the latest undertaking by the New Jersey rocker's Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which has built 260 homes for low-income residents in recent years.

"With the economic downturn, one of the things I noticed was that disposable income was one of the first things that went," Bon Jovi told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday before the restaurant's grand opening ceremony. "Dining out, the family going out to a restaurant, mom not having to cook, dad not having to clean up — a lot of memories were made around restaurant tables.

"When I learned that one in six people in this country goes to bed hungry, I thought this was the next phase of the Foundation's work," he said.

It started several years ago when Dorothea Bongiovi (she uses the legal spelling of her husband's name) and Jon started helping out at a food pantry at nearby St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church. They later moved their focus to the Lunch Break program, which feeds 80 to 120 people a day, dubbing it "The Soul Kitchen."

They brought that name with them to a former auto body shop down the street from the Count Basie Theater, where Jon and his self-titled band have played many fundraising shows for local charities.

It took a year and $250,000, but the restaurant now rivals any of its competitors in trendy Red Bank, with entrees like cornmeal crusted catfish with red beans and rice, grilled chicken breast with homemade basil mayo and rice pilaf, and grilled salmon with soul seasonings, sweet potato mash and sauteed greens, many of which were grown in the herb and vegetable garden right outside the restaurant's doors.

Bon Jovi, who has a home in next-door Middletown, is adamant about one thing.

"This is not a soup kitchen," he emphasizes. "You can come here with the dignity of linens and silver, and you're served a healthy, nutritious meal. This is not burgers and fries.

"There's no prices on our menu, so if you want to come and you want to make a difference, leave a $20 in the envelope on the table. If you can't afford to eat, you can bus tables, you can wait tables, you can work in the kitchen as a dishwasher or sous chef," he said. "If you say to me, 'I'm not a people person,' I say, 'That's not a problem. We'll take you back to Lunch Break to volunteer with those people. If you don't want to volunteer with that, we'll take you to the FoodBank."

After volunteering at one of those places, a person will be given a certificate good for a meal at The Soul Kitchen.

"If you come in and say, 'I'm hungry,' we'll feed you," Bon Jovi said. "But we're going to need you to do something. It's very important to what we're trying to achieve."

That includes making people feel part of a larger community that cares about them, while still expecting them to contribute to society at large.

"This is not an entitlement thing," Bon Jovi said. "This is about empowering people because you have to earn that gift certificate."

He and others at the restaurant want those who can afford to dine out to patronize the restaurant as well and pay what they consider market prices, or even a bit more than that, to help sustain The Soul Kitchen as a true community resource.

Bon Jovi said he is currently writing songs for his band's next album, due out in 2013, along with another typically massive Bon Jovi tour. He said many of the songs are inspired by the current economic downturn and the struggles of everyday people to make ends meet without losing hope.

In the meantime, he and his wife plan to stay active in the restaurant, where he estimates he has worked at least once a week in recent months. The Soul Kitchen is open for dinner Thursday through Saturday, and offers Sunday brunch.

How important is rolling up his sleeves and working in the restaurant to him?

"Last Friday, I was at the White House, serving on the Council for Community Solutions, got on a train, changed in the bathroom and got here in time to wash dishes Friday night," he said. "I'm the dishwasher, for real. I can't cook a lick."

- with thanks to Yahoo News and Associated Press.

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