Life's a Happy Song

I hope everybody had a great Easter. 

Before we get back into the thick of things, I want to share with you a song that reflects - in a unique way - the message of the Easter season. 

In the Risen Lord, faith confirms our hope in the triumph of life. Now, this might not be a religious song but to me it confirms nonetheless, that same hope for life.

Enjoy!

---<--@

International Day of Happiness 2015

I only learned that today is the International Day of Happiness a few days ago and thought it quite odd. A day set aside for happiness! 

Isn't every day in our ordinary lives a day set aside for happiness? Isn't our everyday already set aside for the pursuit of it? Why pick one out?

Then, I realize this Day is a UN Day. 

This means its National. This means the attempt is to make sense of happiness not as a personal pursuit but as a National ambition. Unique.

How can we Filipinos become a more vital and happier people?

ASEAN kids have the right to live in a happy, peaceful, and prosperous ASEAN region.

Penguins of Antarctica agree, colorful sweats make them happy.

Thoughts on the Philippine Constitution 2

Nation is sovereign Foundation.
State is sovereign Expression.
Country is sovereign Motion.
---<--@

Our Constitution being the rule of the Filipino people, the ideals and consequent provisions derived therefrom must be responsible in particular to the question of power.

How sovereign authority is to be utilized to serve the Nation through the Republic within a Philippine democracy are its principles.

These principles serve the Constitutional vision and are the principles of national power.

National power and its structures are Constitutional accommodations - exclusively.

Therefore -

National power must be aligned with Constitutional authority - always.

National power must be made to serve the people - always.

Justice serves the State not because the State is perfect but because the State is flawed and human from the very beginning. This is why the symbol of a Republic is a shield.

And it's wings are sheltering wings.

All Country are zealous for their peoples. But the most zealous of all, as far as our experience may tell, are Republics. This presents us with dangers and advantages unique to our form.

And the most severe, as far as the question of rule is concerned, is the subject of how power is to be preserved, accommodated, and duly exercised in and through the Republic form.

Whatever advantages of permanence lost to us shall linger long after the flames from which all Republics are born have become transformed into the light that warms us, ever guides us, and bids us to carry on marching forward.

Continuity, Concordance, Concentration, Coherence - which Monarchical States, though differing in each their accommodations, reserve to each themselves in a way original to their form, we must in a Republic consistently address as though they were in danger.

This is cost of our Liberty, an eternal vigilance.

Because if we do not properly address these matters - whenever we must, our own zeal will consume us. Toxic power will poison our labor of Country.

In a democracy, we are all responsible for each other's good. The rights we enjoy demand it.

If we as a people falter in our vigilance, if we lose our civic sense and cause this public's trust to fail, what trustworthy fruit shall we reap from this Republic then?

Sovereignty is an emanation of the popular will of the Philippine nation - the people - as our whole in general, but specifically, especially where politics are concerned, in our present form and favor.

How our Republic builds is enabled by how the Philippine State establishes itself in power.

Let us always be reminded that - power without authority is toxic to the State. That power must always align with Constitutional authority - for our own sake. Power itself in a Republic does not necessarily corrupt. A lingering sense of popular powerlessness does - and will.

Tyrants and tyranny are not just of people. They have a powerful social manifestation. Betrayal of the public trust is a betrayal of national power.

Corruption is born of political ambition first. It is never a thing that arises from origins purely civic in nature. But will consume with desire what is civic and make it all political.

A purely political State will appear obscure even to itself. Civics and politics must always agree on a balance. It is a tension, not born of evil fears, but of zeal for the good - a vigilant trust.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, so the saying goes.

And since we have to take the human being as we are, we have to also take our society as it is - there will always be a degree of corruption in an otherwise healthy Republic, but when the common cold is enough to kill us off, that is another matter altogether... Something, somewhere is not in order...

Politics serve. We must demystify the political culture of our Republic and make it clear. Public service is a calling to serve. It is not an ambition to power but nonetheless remains a reward unto itself.

For all consequent successes of the State begins and ends with its most faithful servants - along with its prestige and its rewards.

There is a better way to for the Filipino to prosper, a much surer way. Indeed, if only we can get Country right, it shall be very well for all of us - rich or poor, man or woman, young or young-once.

The popular ambition is a meaningful happiness born in pursuit of freedoms reachable, reasonable, and real; emanating from a Liberty that shines out as a light, to enlighten our nation, nourish the souls of our citizenry, and embrace with a sheltering warmth, the life of the many communities that live within our one Republic whole.

Happiness is different for each person.

However, it is always a consistent theme among all States. How happy it is to be happy - and be whole; one, clear blue Sky in an eternal, golden Summer. War will not purchase for us these things. Therefore, wherever war may seek to present itself, war must be met and withstood. By our peace.

And with all our means.

My fellow Filipinos, brothers and sisters of the promise -

The peace process is a litmus test for this one Filipino nation. I have long carried this message of peace and have consistently conveyed it through my writing.

If by 2020 we are still a split people, it might become less and less likely that we will reach our goal by 2046, and we will fall short.

Hopelessness in all our national communities along with all its attendant paralysis is what we must address: Stagnation, retardation, and impotency in the national life.

National power must be made to serve the vision of our Constitution and build for our people something more worthy of our labors together as one Country.

Hunger in the nation should be one of the first on the list of things we should seek to efficiently channel our national power onto and effectively address.

If we take us for what we are, we know it may not be a thing we can do in haste, or an accomplishment we may claim by our disparate parts.

This nation must prosper the peace, prosper the people - together this time.
---<--@

Salutation #192

All human labor (and its rewards)

profitable to Man is intended by God 

as a just means to obtain our better means. 

This means we all work for a living, 

my brothers and sisters of the Promise. 

We all work for a living - in that - 

we all live and breathe - for the becoming. 

(The Labor of the Truth)

Happiness is the object of our work.

For happiness - in each - 

   shining like a precious and unique jewel 

   held so intimately and lovingly close 

   to each our heart of hearts

which is the perfection of the Beauty - in All - 

   glorious like the crown of the Nations

   ablaze with the gold of a million shining Suns

   reflecting the glory of God in All Creation

is the object of all human labor. 

- selah -

In simpler times, before the Fall of our First Parents, 

the LORD commanded that the work of perfecting the Earth 

be the common mission of the lineages of Mankind.

This building up of the Peace of the Earth - is -

still our mission these days as individual Nations,

still our commission these days as the one Family 

of the Nations of the Children of Mankind.

None has changed save each our natural vision 

of what "this human happiness" must truly consist of.

   For what is happiness?

For our hearts - after the Fall of our First Parents -

may no longer see into the Truth - to find itself -

without the assistance of God and Heaven.

   For what is Truth?

- selah -

Starshine,

the wages of an honest life 

shall always outlast the riches 

of a corrupt one.

Never look down
upon the laborer on the Earth, 

for we are all such as these,
under God and Heaven.

From the lowliest of human labors to the labors of the Angels,

there exists a universal kind of equal dignity - in that - 

we are All - in this Work - of building up the New
- together - or not at all.

Work is for Man. Not Man for the Work.
Resist modern forms of slavery. Uphold the dignity of human work.

Let us look after one another

as fellow human workers and human citizens,

among our Nations - dreaming together this time.

---<--@

As regards the question of the National Wealth, should the Government exist to serve the needs of the poor or the rich?

As regards
the question of the National Wealth,
its recognition, creation, conservation, transformation, and ultimate possession,
should Government exist to serve
the needs of the poor? No.
The rich? No.



Government exists to come to the aid of all of its citizens
that they may - rich or poor - be able to dwell harmoniously together
in order to effectively meet their common human needs -
WORKING together to secure both the dignity and promise of human life,
serve and defend the national peace, enrich their sovereign freedoms,
and to be better and better able to guarantee for their common posterity,
a Republic that - with each generation ripens - for the good of all generations -
in virtue and maturity - in time and in remembrance.

The material betterment that Capitalism promises
is founded on the truth that all citizens must first of all, regard each other as such -
as human beings to each other - being variously but consistently sympathetic
to the poverty and humiliation of the human condition and thus,
willing to work freely with each other under God
to continuously co-create and prosper
the National Wealth.

Upon this singular moral condition is founded
the ethical safeguards that are necessary to preserve the societal certainty
of its central ideals of entrepreneurial competition and market freedom.

Businesses that come to possess a superior management
stand to outdo those that consistently fail to acquire it.
And proceeding from this first ideal (i.e. authentic human entrepreneurship)
in a free market environment (i.e. one that is possessed of authentic market freedoms),
products (and services as products) that are better made consistently stand to gain
a better share of the Common Market (as a whole) - but -
only inasmuch as it is a consequence, direct as well as indirect,
of the first ideal -

An enterprise driven system designed to create and multiply both capital and industry
by inclining citizen-consumers to be citizen-producers, and provides for these ideals accordingly

a Free Market System - purposed, structured, and therefore, expected to faithfully function

(1) to encourage the maintenance and practical evolution of good business practices,
(2) reward both dedicated management and dedicated labor with a positive workforce culture
and (3) effectively transfer all of its variously intended benefits to the intended good of the citizenry
who by being able to - freely and equally - participate in the creation of both supply and demand
maintains his or her essential responsibility as an active participant in a Capitalist economy
both in the consumption of goods as well as in the promotion of the pertient commercial good
thus exercising free choice as regards the nature and direction of the Common Market.

(Materialism 
confounds these ideals
and places the merit
as well as the burden of virtue
on the Market itself which
can neither possess it
nor become possessed by it.
Citizens get enlightened.
Corporations do not.)

For indeed, everybody
must enter into everybody's labor
and everybody's labor must be aligned and directed
toward the ultimate end for which all human labor must be purposed
which is a just distribution of this world's material goods within the Nation
as a reality proceeding from an equitable appreciation of the National Wealth -
which is always more than just the material component of "being rich".

This is the kind of Capitalism
I should like to subscribe to -
an economy of matter and spirit. 

We are, as a Nation,
to be wealthy first (and recognize it)
before we become wealthy (and realize it).
For there is only one direction toward wealth
and that is to become truly wealthy - for everybody.

Virtue is currency.

Not the rigid, materialistic, purposeless
and therefore, at times, quite cruel and inhuman system
- divisive of rich and poor and therefore, ultimately hostile to both -
an economic system that has lost its ability to steer itself
with the progress of the Nation whose existence
guarantees it own success.
---<--@

What makes you happy does not always make you rich. 
But what makes you rich must always make you happy.

A Nation's Treasures

A Nation's wealth is the life and promise of its people - across all our generations.

My people, as we emerge as a Republic in our ages, before we are burdened more and more with the responsibility of material wealth - I want us to remember the simplicity of our happiness in this picture.

It is commonly said that one ought to find one's happiness before doing anything so that anything one does shall be of good profit to the self. This is true.

But lest the world anymore complicate it, this is true only if one can keep one's happiness in the soul and keep it there - present and abiding as a joy in thy spirit - without anything else.

So that in knowing this, we shall always know, as we together undertake to further progress our journey of Country, Earth from Sky - the bounds of our reach and the reach of our limits - where the freedom of Man ends and the Freedom of God begins.

For our freedoms
shall always be our bounds,
our happiness shall to each of us
always remain within their reach
appearing as limitless to our hearts as the Sky
only as far as their limits are known to us here on Earth -
therefore, to transgress the freedom that keep us real
is to distort the happiness that keep us free -
as the gravity of material things tend to do
to remind us of responsibility.

Let us always remain with the truth - we are a spiritual people and therefore, when it comes to our dream of happiness - simply, a simple people.

Everything we need is within each of us - from this unity, God-helping, we shall confidently build.

Now, let us carry on - into the morrow.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.
---<--@

We are to be wealthy first before becoming wealthy.

A Perfect Democracy?

No Perfection Without God



A perfect democracy can not exist in this world, as it is.

All we can hope for is
to achieve an optimal tension.
One that ensures within our society
- under the eternal vigilance of Almighty God -
that the responsible side of our freedom
- those authentic human freedoms -
are always - ALWAYS - well on their way
to winning the conflict - against their false and evil side:
That the truth is ever over untruth, light is ever over darkness,
good is ever over evil, spirit over matter, and Peace over War...

Thus, preserving the Creative Ideal - in every generation 

for All our generations to the very last generation.

For -

Freedom is to know freedom.
Democracy is to love it.
Liberty is to be guided by it
and Happiness is to be able to live it
- alone or with others -
under the eternal vigilance of God,
imperfectly in this world
and perfectly in the Next.
---<--@

Our slavery is a bond.
But our freedom too is a bond.
The former, of death and oppression.
The latter, of life and liberation.
One is a betrayal.
The other, a vindication of the betrayed.

Salutation #140

Equality is an environment

where individuals who are not alike (in our distinct persons)
become equally empowered (under God) to find their own happiness
as well as enabled to freely support (through Country) others in that same pursuit.
---<--@

(Define Equality)

Equality is a quality of Justice;

the fullness of every life's goodness
made present in all - for all.

Equality is the perfection of Law;
the completion of the labor of nations
made manifest in all - for all.

It is not a form of slavery
to a blind and mindless conformity;
the ancient curse of modernity!

Nor a vainglorious submission
to the fickle fashions of the times
that soon wash away with the darkness
ever as fleeting as the world!

Equality is
the boon of peace!

And therefore,
a social virtue born of good will -
the undoing of all false impressions,
mischievous hatreds, and maliciousness.

It is the medium of every human respect
and the foundation of our every labor
of awakening the timeless dream
that slumbers from within
every Man - for every Man
born of freedom and love of the same
not make every person a copy of the other
but to allow us all in our common communities
to be uniquely and supremely happy

   (across our kindred nations,
   across our common generations)
in the realization in the self that indeed -
freedom is not happiness,
happiness is freedom.

This is a Just Equality.
---<--@

Old Defiant says -

If
Luzon + Visayas + Mindanao = one Republic

Then,
Luzon = Visayas = Mindanao = one Nation

For
Star + Star + Star = Sun (synergy)

And
Star = Star = Star = Sun (luminosity)
---<--@


No Unity without Diversity

Salutation #75

A Nation at peace with its own truth is a Country at one with its own heart.

(The Pursuit of Happiness)

Happiness is not a freedom to do anything.

Happiness is the ability

to consistently do the right thing

in spite of everything.

Therefore,

a happy person is a person

in possession of his or her own freedom.

One who obtains happiness

by striving to live a life

that is truly free.

- selah (pause for thought) -

Now,

a lot of people look for peace

for all peoples have an idea of what happiness is

but only a few know where to begin.

No one can tell you what the truth for you is like

but you can listen to others

to find out where to begin looking

for thy own truth.

For your peace is your own.

But your peace is never meant

to only be yours.

For you are like a star - that -

once aflame must reach out to shine

for other stars across time and distance

- against the Night.

Truly,

the individual is important.

But this importance must exist

within a community that values it.

This is our liberty.

- selah -

Once you are in possession

of the truth in your own heart

- O Beloved of the LORD -

it may only be taken away

by your lack of vigilance.

For no one can dictate to you

what you must will to cherish forever

- in the city within thy own heart -

within those worlds within thyself.

Heaven and earth may only give thee

good counsel and due caution.

So be careful of the false images

that are specifically intended

for the ruin of your dreams

and the overthrow of thy own peace.

For once you are in possession

of thy peace in thy own heart,

it may only be uprooted

(and may God forbid it)

by your freely giving it away.

---<--@

Salutation #74

The one music in you is the one music in me.

(The Filipino Dream)

Know the (Filipino) Dream, see the (Republic) Vision.

- selah -

There is a dream in myself which is for myself.

There is a dream in yourself which is for yourself.

But the dream in all ourselves

- must exist -

within a greater dreaming.

This is our national dreaming,

which from the time our nation was conceived

- in the Mind of God -

till the moment our nation is once again received

- into the Heart of God -

constitutes one whole dream.

This dream is the Filipino Dream.

And everyday we wake up

with the love of our nation in our heart

is everyday we add to the splendor

of its eventual awakening.

For every day we improve our lives

and the lives of our Countrymen and women

is every day we realize its Promise

in each ourselves - for all of us -

together this time.

Because the Dream which is ours

is one continuous dreaming

and each of us contribute

toward its completion

in each ourselves.

It may only reach its fulfillment

when the national destiny is reached

by the last of our generations.

When our Country is perfected

by the God of all Countries.

No one can truly define

- the Filipino Dream -

but the Filipino.

And each of us contribute

toward its completion in ourselves.

Now,

our national dreaming,

my brothers and sisters of the Promise,

is NOT a material dream.

And of this truth

we should be especially vigilant:

For the happiness we desire

- as individuals and as a nation -

is not a thing of the earth

but a happiness in the spirit.

---<--@

Also, please refer to Salutation #20 (Freedom and the Filipino Dream)

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

20101109

Simplicity vs. Corruption

The labor of life is a pursuit of happiness.

Now, let it also be said here that this happiness is not so much about addition but subtraction.

For the happiness that the human heart longs for is an immaterial state.

But the spirit of the world would have us believe otherwise. For the spirit of the world is an enemy of truth.

Corruption begins when the lie enters the heart that the end for which our labors upon this earth is intended is a purely material end.

Therefore, all human beings are vulnerable to its allure - young, old, rich, poor. It threatens all and reduces all to emptiness.

Material wealth is a necessary good. But temporal riches are not the ultimate end towards which the fulfillment of life is purposed. It is a means to an end.

In our world, there are those unhappy souls who live in utter desolation in the midst of great material wealth. Those who toil no more for the original purposes through which all men and women are purposed by the LORD to obtain from the one God of all the abundance of heaven on earth.

They labor instead for vain and material ends and reap naught but emptiness and isolation. They have become enslaved by the fickle fashion of fleeting things. They have lost the appetite for the true things of happiness - virtue, light, beauty, peace, family, friendship: God, and Country.

They have become corrupt and eventually, habitually corrupt. They have ceased to be simple like children, young and free.

Hence, corruption is a vice and as thus, is opposed by a virtue.

This virtue is simplicity.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, simplicity is a virtue and as thus, require the grace of God in its operation. And so I should like to illustrate this for us through this brief anecdote:

Freedom Seeking Freedom -

do you like to live simply?

"yes."

no, you don't

if you would like to live simply

when i ask you again

do you like to live simply

you must first learn to answer no

and to humble thyself before our God

say to thy heart that God is and that is all!

and then say to the one LORD of all truth

that you want the answer to be yes

persevering in constant prayer

until you know that you do

for you are by thy seeking sought

... selah

because you sought, o heart

you are found

and you become free to become

thy true self.

---<--@

Virtue is a power to act; a power begun as a choice to cooperate with the Divine will. All that is virtue must proceed after its every realization in the quiet of the heart with God as a free and human act practiced over and over again until its exercise forms in the soul a habit of grace.

Indeed, the battle to end corruption begins and ends again with the self.

A "No" to corruption is a "Yes" to the Republic.

Therefore, if every Filipino would say "No" to corruption even for a day, it is a good start as the solution here belongs to its own exercise.

This exercise of virtue opposing vice may be likened to a new road being laid over the old.

The smoothness of the new means it must extend over the entire length of the old. This means it shall require much time and practice. The more complete the road, the smoother the journey.

The strength of the new road means it must possess (and be possessed of) some depth. This means it shall require much prayer and faith. The deeper its layers, the firmer the road.

Truthfulness or honesty is the foundation of simplicity.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Love and Truth