Showing posts with label The Tree of the Desolation of War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Tree of the Desolation of War. Show all posts

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Peace in Russia

Human constructs  
- systems, institutions, corporations, etc. -
fielded across each their necessary applications
to bring form and order to the purposes
of all human endeavor
within the Nation,
where these fail against their own times - is -
because these constructs inherit also
what weakness there is in Man.

But Nations are not human constructs.

And Russia is a Nation.
---<--@

The first act of Peace is always Good will.

All Nations destined by the LORD - unto the gathering of the Times, in the here and Now of today - before this planetary crossroad, are all the Nations of the Children of Mankind.

And all the Nations of the Children of Mankind, commissioned by God at the Autumnal Dusk of our faded Eden, stand together to strengthen and preserve the life and the labors of Man through his lineages in time across all our generations to the last of our generations.

For we are upon this world to fulfill the First Command to build up the Earth (into the Inhabited Earth - a world not only rich in temporal life and in the living but in light and limitless spiritual wealth).

All the Nations of the Children were equally commissioned by God - together - and are symbolized by the Angel that the LORD placed at the place of our beginnings - at the East Gate - where we together left for our long march into exile - which is also the direction of our common returning.

Thus, our sovereignty is part of the endowment granted each of us by the God of all of us - and indeed, this sovereignty is realized - at all times and places - in the people -

...the peoples of this world - whose lineages entire the LORD entrusts to each of us, their Nations, to safeguard and prosper - and ultimately to return back into Him - much enriched and in better forms of communion with each other - and through God's own mysterious actions in time - individually as well as collectively worthy of His Salvation, being upon this visible universe - a brilliance that to the LORD is - "very good".

This, the LORD did in our living Assembly before His Throne in Eternity - and is always true.

The common roots of our sovereignty arise from the order by which God has from all Ages intended for Man - for his own good's sake - to accomplish before Him, the command to build up the Earth - for Man.

Thus, Nations are small or great - as Trees are trees in the Garden of our World - not for tending the Tree which is not our own - but for loving that which God has intended us to love (Peace) and in this love growing through Remembrance of our selves and in each other in the knowledge of the Truth of our selves and each other (Good will).

We have and we maintain borders not because of limits to human potentiality or because of a reality which is fragmented but because there must be order and purpose to the work.

To safeguard this order and purpose is the craft of all our Nations - and this craft is Peace.

(In the Sun Tzu - this in not just the first consideration when we consider "Moral Law" - it is the first and the final consideration - and is more than just Moral Law - it is the ultimate form of the "Sovereign" and embodies a living Spirit of present Remembrance.)

Hence, at the time we were together commissioned in Assembly before Godl, we also received as well from each other a priori, a recognition of our sovereign selves - and this is always true.

Because the first act of Peace is always Good will.

Therefore, sovereignty in all our Nations is always a reality in ourselves - realized (in our citizenship) as well as recognized (in the citizenship of other sovereign Nations) - our reflections in Heaven, as they should be in the truth - upon our Earth.

Truly, as Nations among each other, we have said our "Peace" unto each other - in Good will - before the LORD, our one Sovereign - long before our Time upon this world came to be - a Time that was upon this time - inaugurated by the LORD through the Noahide Covenant.

And I would that we should deeply consider this as we remember again today, our Peace with each other.
---<--@

We did not emerge in physical time together as we were commissioned. Israel was the first - the tip of the spear - first among equals. How God fashioned the Nation Israel is how each of us are also fashioned - being a people first - before and above everything else.

(So that each of our sovereignty is always a reality that emanates from the life of our people - and this life is a concentration - build upon human dignity and human promise - whose strength relies upon how well and how faithfully we each come to realize, recognize, sustain and develop our Peace).

And today, we have all arrived - so that we must accept the status quo of our world from 2009, and work to change our hearts that we may see far into our Nation's hearts.

And let us again remind ourselves of the reality of our Nationhood and together understand that this is not a religious labor but a very, very human one. And that a broken Spear - anywhere and in anytime - is useless against the charge of the Horse.

Indeed, the most prudent and visionary of our leaders - in our kings, queens, princes, presidents, ministers, and captains, have ever always understood for the sake of the many, that all National Remembrances are ultimately Human ones - and that Peace is over War.

And in this Age of Spirit and Thought - it is Now incumbent upon all of Mankind to realize what the best and greatest of us have been made to realize - that the enveloping global darkness that is the Siege of War may be broken and a new door and a new path may be opened before our world - as a planetary community entire.

We did not emerge in physical time together as we were commissioned. But where we do emerge - alone, the pattern of our commissioning always reflects the pattern of our emergence upon this world. So that in Peace and Good will - we always have stood by each other - and with each other before God - and from always to always - this shall be so - forever.

We just have to remember.
---<--@

After the Cold War, the Peace was won. But the War that nearly annihilated all life in this world is not yet fully subdued. And so the Peace that was won is not yet completely ours.

Bewilderment and confusion always follow in the wake of major conflicts - this is most especially true in the case of a total, global War.

Even as our corporeal eyes hurt to emerge in the Day when the passing Night for us have become too deep and too uncertain a Darkness, there are times likewise when the sight of our hearts have largely forgotten or forsaken too much of what Peace in us sustains and what Peace for us in the LORD obtains - to become mostly blind to what is - for every Nation, an absolute - and therefore, absolutely worth fighting for.

(As the generations living now in my own Country have never known internal peace and have never tasted its promise must remember the Darkness that we may move toward the Dawn of a new Light.)

(In the external sense, this is what is happening in South Sudan now. And we Nations who recognized that Nation emerging have an obligation to assist that Nation to secure herself from the Darkness.)

(And in the CAR, an absolutely dishonorable religious division is again taking hold against our Peace. This is also why it is difficult for one to take sides in Syria - for ultimately, there is no side there but - our side - the human one vs. the one who would make us all inhuman.)

(Indeed, we shall all account for these losses.)

Battles may always appear won in the first four spheres of Military involvement. But War itself and as itself can only be withstood in the fifth.

That the Cold War was not brought to conclusion - and thermonuclear annihilation at the global scale of all things a hundred times over - is already a gain of Peace.

Who yielded and who did not shall be the gain of our Remembrances together - for "that war" was the War among all past wars, the one to be withstood.

The past is bitter drink indeed where and when it holds the present hostage and the future to ransom.

But Nations never drink from the cup of the past - our cup is always held out for the water of present things - here, in the Now.
---<--@

We are today not as we begun. For Nations (in each their being) are also their particular motions (in each their becoming) in time, a labor of Country - a Tree among many Trees.

(If one were to be presented with an image of the Garden of many Trees, at the center shall always be what particular Nation the LORD has from all time intended to be, for each of us, our own Nation - and - the one Tree of the Desolation War, the Dominion of the Devil whose Sword is the Despoliation of all Sacred Life.)

For we are a growing and reaching out - a journeying, if you will, in and across time.

And sometimes, we pick up some travelers along the way. As the parable of the Good Samaritan, when applied to the community of Nations, will invoke in our hearts - We are to welcome the Stranger that the Stranger to us be Strangers no more.

For this is what the LORD requires - that all Men and Women be equal citizens before God and all Nations before the LORD stand shoulder to shoulder equally -

...the grieving widow to comfort,
prisoners to safeguard and to lovingly correct,
orphans to kindly and freely embrace -
and to multiply these persons
upon our human world
no more.

So Peace be upon you, Russia, do not be bitter. Hold no one and nothing in contempt. For thy life and thy future is yours - all the rest we shall together learn and remember together.
---<--@

I remember Beslan, a terrible thing among many terrible things that this little world of ours should not have to endure. But we all do - for Beslan is everywhere. Volgograd is too.

For hatred was in the 9 o'clock blue of New York, shattering that morning September sky - it was in Bali, Mumbai, Madrid, London, Amman, and in all Continents present save for perhaps, Antarctica (who if we do not turn course, may also fall), as the sin of the Devil's pride persists.

It is also here in my own Philippines, something I am working and praying hard - with all my brothers and sisters of the Promise - to battle and overcome - together this time.

Because it is our most fundamental of responsibilities as a Nation commissioned by the LORD to serve and preserve both human dignity and human promise of the Children of Mankind upon this fallen world - that to the extent we are faithful to our commissioning, we together preclude evils of a social nature from setting its foot upon the soil of our Earth.

But where we are in the soul of our citizenship together weak of compassion and sympathy for the human condition, War gains a foothold upon our human world in order to make it inhuman against our will.

The Savior of all Mankind came to deliver this world from its sin - the sin of separation - which is the original and fatal wounding all Men suffer - and to allow the human lineages return (according to our repentance from personal and moral sin) to an Eden rebuilt - even while Man is still upon this world and gain for ourselves together an everlasting place in a Kingdom that neither in splendor fades nor in glory ends - at the consummation of time as we know time to be...

...so that Now, with every present time, we must as individual citizens and individual Nations together work to deflect and remove this alien and inhospitable Darkness (of sin and War) from our own human world, to the extent God allows, our humanity permits, and the times require -

particularly in this Age above all ages past.
---<--@

Self-immolation is an act of protest - sacrificial to the most - and bound not by ordinary human freedom. In all of these cases, where there is an abiding, legitimate and human cause - the object of Justice is for Justice to be done unto Justice herself. These are therefore, purely the domain of Law and legal redress. To redress it, Law must come to understand it - from the source.

Suicide bombing is a species of self-immolation, louder in expression, and profoundly more deeper in voice - and in all cases, extreme in the eyes of all living souls. Invariably, for its indiscriminate violence against the life of our innocents - it is always an act of terrorism and in so being, demands our urgent attention.

Terrorism is always a political act. And so it gains from any political uncertainty on our end.

There must exist a cycle of pain and loss here that works to progressively destroy the normal course and outcome of authentic human freedoms that until this cycle effectively is broken by Law and its protections - will ultimately exact a terrible toll against our Nations - a price measured by the sum of human lives lost - for in all acts of terror we lose them all - save for the bomb and the conditions that allow the political will of terrorists to be married up to the means of terror.

Where to draw the line of the defense is the question. Remove and redress the prevailing conditions and the will and the means shall divorce themselves permanently.

This is a law-enforcement led process. Prevention here is in the Law. Justice here is a reaction. Military means may in many cases only exacerbate the matter and may only be employed in the tactical, where all proactive means have already failed.

And as War, there is no better deterrence to terrorism than to prevent it from breaking through into our world.

Meet the ever so wearisome politics of division with the better politics of human unity and know at the heart where to draw the line where the defense may be well fought - not in support of War but for the sake of the Peace.

Even the same Peace, we shall this winter in Sochi celebrate together.

I pray and I hope for a safe, secure, and memorably meaningful Sochi winter games - for all our Nations! The time is not yet late. May all Nations come together under the warmth of the Olympic flame in Peace and in Good will with each other and in friendships compete in the sport and in the spirit of these modern games - to know and to honor what is best in each ourselves across all our Nations.



Remember, when War draws near - it seeks from our Nations a confrontation.

Do not confront the Dragon where it approaches, defend. 
---<--@


Didn't know we're celebrating June 12 together this year, cool.
---<--@

Spot the diff? This is the Flag of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
---<--@

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Salutation #34

The Enemy of the Nations will establish a Desolation.

And he will call it "Peace".


(A Vision of the Desolation)

I saw in a dream
- a few days before the Easter Triduum of 2009 -
a prominent list of atrocities
listed according to their heinousness.
Their frequency was from the most heinous to the least inhuman act
with the most heinous one to be committed against the people twice a year.

There was a camp
much like Bergen-Belsen.
But it was not a dream about the Holocaust.
It was a dream about another Holocaust.

There were people (of every nation)
in the middle of the night,
civilians - men, women, children -
being thrown whole
(to be consumed body and soul)
by faceless men in uniform
into a smoking pit in the ground
and from out of this pit was thick smoke -
the smoke of poison gas.

There was no sound to the dream
only this terrible feeling of growing horror
at this appalling vision in greyscale
unfolding before the eye of my heart.

I felt powerless.
An increasing sense of panic overtook me,
wanting for the dream to end...
---<--@

(produced 20110710)


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Salutation #169

The human spirit is under siege -
the diversity which is its surest strength
and the unity which is its strongest foundation
is everywhere undermined
and corrupted.

Brother stands against brother,
nations against each other,
all in the not knowing
all no longer know.

(For what our nations
now seem to only remember
- under this season in time -
are reasons for war more so
than reasons for peace.)



(Zeal for the House of Humanity)

Darkness reigns
in the House of Humanity!

Christians are threatened.
Muslims are threatened.
Jews are threatened.

Hindus are threatened.
Sikhs are threatened.
Buddhists are threatened.
Atheists are threatened.

Every soul and every spirit
(whatever shines in ourselves)
across every belonging, 
and every belonging
across every nation
is threatened.

Somewhere in our world, 
this is always true.

If everybody is threatened,
who then is doing the threatening?

If we can not draw the line
- together this time -
when and where this insufferable war
against our common humanity ends
and the peace of our needful Mankind
truly ever begins... O ye peoples,
where then do we look to
for the morning?

Shall we wait till we all
shall have lost our humanity?

Shall we wait till every nation
have turned to ashes from within
and our world so needful of respite and repair
utterly plunged into a terrible darkness?

Can we hope to withstand another age of war?
---<--@



"Evil has taken a prominent place
in the hearts and minds of many;
like a dark star that rises
Wormwood ascends from sin to sin
in the Sacred Sanctuary of the soul
to eclipse our Eternal Daystar
turning our poor world into midnight
in the inward seasons of the celestial sky."

- Generation Y

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Shalom. Salaam. Peace.

"I will turn them back into their nations
and return them to a memory of themselves
unto the work that I have purposed for the earth
that they may understand again the value of peace
so that I may prosper them through their generations
and bring them back to a memory of each other."
---<--@



I love the Holy Land
and have often thought -

If Israel is attacked, I am an Israeli.

If Palestine is attacked, I am a Palestinian.

If both Israel and Palestine are attacked -
then I am Israeli and Palestinian both.

But when they attack each other,
I am sorely grieved...

I am sorely grieved
for the least, the defenseless,
and the voiceless among them both.

For when both attack each other,
it is never the blame of the weak
but always of the strong...

In this way, I find my voice.

So that when in my heart I affirm -
"let there be peace be in the Middle East!",
I become sure of my own sincerity.
---<--@


No Way

Friday, August 24, 2012

Salutation #152

The War in heaven is in the heart.



(The Planet of War)

Science
derives from Mars
better science.

This is so
because the work of science
is the progression of the knowledge
of science.

Likewise -

Citizenship
derives from Mars
better citizenship.

   Citizenship being the act
   of placing one's own true self
   in the service of God and Country.
 
This is so
because the common work of citizenship
is the cultivation of civilization.

   Civilization being the work
   of instilling the creative, regenerative,
   and lawful order of heaven upon the earth -

   It is the labor of forming the unknown earth;
      the untamed worlds of lower creation,
      veiled in darkness and scattered across the void
   into the inhabited earth which is the perfected domicile of Man;
      a universe shining with a myriad living lights, unveiled in perfect form,
      reflecting the golden glory of the Creator of all (the realms of) creation.

   It is the labor of the nations of the children of Mankind;
      the dedicated work of both matter and spirit, heaven and earth -
      God, (the Holy) Angels and (the nations of) Man together.

Therefore -

What does
an understanding of the red planet
give to our citizenship?

Better citizenship.

For
what knowledge
can citizens derive from
the planet of War?

Better civilization.

BECAUSE
Mars gives us an actual glimpse
of what a planet looks like
after the spirit of War
has finished it off.

Lifeless.
Destroyed.
Utterly defeated.
---<--@



Citizenship is in the soul - 'tis a seeking in the self -
an integral part of the blossoming of every human life.
So you breath it in your spirit, and you live it in your life
- you seek it like the motion of a love learning to love -
you long for it in yourself - until you are full for the truth -
until your belonging is absolute and your joy is complete.

(Photos courtesy of NASA - with thanks!)

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Salutation #120



Mazel tov, Israel -
mabuhay at maligayang bati!

Binabati kita bilang tanyag at modernong Sambayanang-Kilusang payapa
nang may buong kaalamang ika'y tunay na matanda pa
at kagalang-galang sa iyong mga taon kesa rito.

Kapayappan sa iyo ang aking alay:

Sana maghari na rin
ang kapayapaan sa Gitnang Silangan
at diwa ng pagkikipagkaibigan sa mga bansa sa puso ng ating Asya
bawa't isa bilang kanya-kanyang Sambayanang-Kilusang payapa
lalo na ang pinaka-mahina at pinaka-nangangailangan sa lahat -
ang mga Palestinong biktima na rin ng lumang diwa ng galit at dibisyon
na magiting na tumatangan sa pag-asa ng kaninlang adhikaing
makilala at makipagugnayan sa atin bilang bansang isa.

Kapayapaan na inyo na ring kanlungan,
mahal naming bayang Israel,
at kanlungan na rin nang lahat ng ating mga bansa
dito sa mundo nating pagod at nanganganib
at kasalukuyang nangangailangan
ng ating pagkalinga at pagmamahal.

Maghari sana
ang diwa ng bagong panahon
at maging liwanag nawa ito
sa pagnanasa nating lahat -

Kapayapaan, Israel,
ang iyong tunay na karunungan!

Mahal kita - nawa'y kupkupin ka ng Diyos
at pagpalain nang Diyos ang lahat nating mga bansa -
maligayang kaarawan!
---<--@



(Free Israel!)

Mazel tov, Israel -
long may thy remembrance serve thee!

I greet thee, Modern Israel, as an undertaking of Country
recognizing that thy age as a nation is far more better in their years.

My hope for thee is peace:

Let there be peace in the Middle East
and goodwill to all the nations at the heart of our Asia
- each arrayed as their own particular undertaking of Country -
not forsaking all, especially the most vulnerable of all:
the Palestinians caught between the poverty of their exile
and the strength of the nationhood they keep in their hearts.

The peace which is to thee 
thy own shelter, beloved people Israel,
as well as to all our kindred nations in this world
so much in need of respite and repair.

May the spirit
of this new season under heaven
reign upon the souls of all our peoples
and may it be as a light unto each of us
that guide our way back to peace -

Peace, Israel,
which is thy real heritage
and the fruit of all thy wisdom.


I love you - God keep you
and God bless us all -
happy birthday!
---<--@



O Israel, can you see what lies just ahead? There is nothing there...

For we have ALL been by the spirit of War deceived.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Salutation #113

Those who live to nurture
the tree of the desolation of war
- shall certainly eat of its fruit -
and the fruits of war is plain
and bitter forever.

Therefore,
let us return now to the native peace of our nations -
that we may eat of the fruit that sustains our humanity;
that we may be a support to each other as citizens;
that we may be a blessing to each other as nations;
that we may reflect the glory of the God heaven on earth.



(The Tree of the Desolation of War)

THERE WAS ONCE
an orchard filled with trees
of many kinds.

All of the trees in the orchard
bore good fruit save for one.

There was a tree
at the center of the orchard
that bore no fruit at all.

It was the largest tree of all.

It was also the most ancient of all.

It's great and lofty branches
overshadowed a third of the orchard.

It blocked out much of the sky.

And it drew up nourishment
from the soil meant for other trees.

Now,
the number of trees in the orchard was fixed
by the owner from the beginning.

To each tree he assigned
from among all of his laborers in the field,
a custodian.

For the owner had much property to tend
and not enough workers.

To each custodian in the orchard, 
the owner assigned a specific yield. 

And for this yield he gave a specified time.

He then left to find more workers.

- selah -

The trees are our nations

The great tree at the center of the orchard 
is the desolation of war. 

The custodians are the angels of the nations 
who are the keepers of our sacred remembrances. 

The owner is the LORD, 
the one Sovereign of all nations. 

And we are the workers.

But the custodian of the desolation of war 
is the great serpent of faded Eden. 

And he bids us 
- constantly - 
not to tend to our trees. 

At the very door of our hearts, 
the enemy of all human nations 
calls us not to serve
and to commit adultery
against our own humanity.

Time came 
and a great darkness fell upon our nations: 

The great cycle of the one celestial season is turning: 
Winter now approaches our time on earth.

Let us then work 
to complete our own remembrances 
with autumn leaves shed 
not so much for winter's sake 
but for the spring.

Let us turn away from the darkness.

Let us tend to each our own trees. 

And bear the good fruit of repentance.

Let us fight for the Causes 
- that have forever established us -
a free and human nation: 

Sacred Life, Law, Justice, and Benignity.

Let us compete in virtue 
- as citizens to each other - 
and produce for God and for each other 
a yield of good works, ten-fold, 
a hundred-fold, even a thousand-fold!

Starve out the serpent, O my nation! 

And let our generations prosper far into their years...

Born to the Morning: 
This is our land and Now is our time.

Because now is the time for peace.

This is our time.
---<--@

It is human to fight for right causes. It is not human to fight against Justice.

It is human to know when to stop fighting. It is not human to forsake the cause of Peace.

It is human to hope for self and for others. It is not human to despair of either self or of others.

It is human to fight for love. It is not human to fight for hate.

For when we fight for love, we defend. When we fight for hate, we only fight.
---<--@


Lightning Preceding Thunder

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Salutation #105

The roots of War is ancient.

Therefore, War was never a choice that can be made freely by any nation as itself.

The real choice all our nations must always make - in every generation, and in every present time - is peace.

So let this be our choice - let our freedom be always guided by it.



(Trees in the Garden of God)

The truth is
all nations are friends
- some now, some later -
but in the end,
our peace is kin.

No nation is truly the enemy of another!

And when we do fight,
however enduring and painful
the searing remembrances of these conflicts,
it is always because of a necessity
whether real, contrived, or imagined.

Nations never come into conflict
because of an enmity that is permanent.

- selah -

War is always something imposed upon our peace.

Let us then
learn to discern
- what is and what is not ours -
as a nation among nations, my people,
that we may,
as an integral part of a great family of nations,
begin to know and understand each other
- as nations -
more and more...

Let us bear in mind -

These is a natural tension
- between nations -
a gap between our truths
- ordained by the LORD -
a spiritual divide that may only be bridged
by our awakening to an understanding of ourselves.

We must never be afraid
to bridge these gap between nations
and to labor to recognize
- those friendships -
long withheld from our strength.

We work to overcome
the tensions between our peace
secure in the knowledge of ourselves as ourselves
and sincere in our desire
for goodwill and human community
for in the same way other nations does influence us,
never forget, my beloved nation Philippines,
- we also are -
an influence to other nations.
---<--@

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Salutation #80

I saw a vision of two worlds -
two paths leading away from each other...
two choices - with nothing - in between;
one is a freedom that leads to a future bright,
the other a return to the darkness of the night -
a choice begun in every human heart
a choice to return us again from the start.



(Crystal Blue Sphere)

I SAW IN A VISION,
a crystal blue sphere,
shining with a multitude of living lights.

The vision came to me quite abruptly
while I was awake in the day,
riding a jeep home from work.

The vision stayed for a time before me as I wondered.
I wondered at how wondrous and beautiful beyond imagination it was
that I thought I was seeing through the eyes of angels.

Then a darkness came over the vision
and it seemed to me for an instant that it was no longer there.

- selah -

But it was, O my nation,
before me was a world so overrun by sin and war
that it was no longer distinct from the nothingness of the void -
an unknown earth bereft of light,
forsook by heaven,
and forgot by God.
---<--@

My New Year 2012 hope -


I pray for more leaders who are accountable to God first that the LORD may craft them into proper instruments of a government wholly dedicated and responsible to the people they serve.

Leaders who at every level of government embody the definition of a popular mandate being interested in neither fame nor notoriety but in establishing in our nation through their persons the divine authority that makes us all equal before the LORD both in dignity and in promise.

Loyal leadership like these may only arise from a nation faithful to its own truth, arrayed in time as an undertaking of Country at one with its own mission and at peace with its own vision.

Therefore, I pray - first and foremost - for our nation: May we now become what we've always dreamed of becoming... mabuhay!

This is my new year hope. God bless the Philippines!
---<--@

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Crystal Blue Sphere

I saw a vision of two worlds -
two paths leading away from each other...
two choices - with nothing - in between;
one is a freedom that leads to a future bright,
the other a return to the darkness of the night -
a choice begun in every human heart
a choice to return us again from the start.

(no picture I can find does justice to what I saw that day...)

I SAW IN A VISION,
a crystal blue sphere,
shining with a multitude of living lights.

The vision came to me quite abruptly
while I was awake in the day,
riding a jeep home from work.

The vision stayed for a time before me as I wondered.
I wondered at how wondrous and beautiful beyond imagination it was
that I thought I was seeing through the eyes of angels.

Then a darkness came over the vision
and it seemed to me for an instant that it was no longer there.

- selah -

But it was, O my nation,
before me was a world so overrun by sin and war
that it was no longer distinct from the nothingness of the void -
an unknown earth bereft of light,
forsook by heaven,
and forgot by God.
---<--@

(This was two years ago or more... during the first half of 2009.)

Sunday, July 10, 2011

20110710

Some people can afford to squander the memory of our heroes...



But I can neither hate nor ignore them for I can not afford to be like them. What they do only strengthens my own remembrance.

In some way, I pity them. May God quicken their souls...
---<--@

On Remembrance


Remembrance is a commandment of God of all human nations.

Hence, a lack of remembrance breeds a certain contempt of the sacred.

Either one draws away from the sacred, placing it in a place out of reach of the heart. Or one becomes enraged by it, making of it an enemy of the heart.

A person who looks for God who has not the remembrance of God in the heart looks for Him in vain.

He or she may seek God in the heavens or on the earth and God shall nowhere be found for that person.

The great scandal of this is that this person may claim that God is not - where in fact, he or she has closed the eye of the heart to the Presence of the LORD in all things, seen and unseen.

The remembrance of the war dead belong to the realm of the sacred.

In an ever increasingly materialistic society, where God is being everywhere forgot, a healthy regard for the sacred soon becomes an uncommon virtue.

What lies beyond the veil of time, where all unity must proceed, in unseen realms beyond the nature and scope of the physical and the temporal, is where a healthy sense of sacred remembrance grounds the human heart.

Where remembrance is increasingly becoming scarce, there shall in its place be a growing lack of a sense of connection with history and with each other.

For all truly human relationships are spiritual connections.
---<--@

Salutation #34


(A Vision of the Desolation)

I saw in a dream
- a few days before the Easter Triduum of 2009 -
a prominent list of atrocities
listed according to their heinousness.
Their frequency was from the most heinous to the least inhuman act
with the most heinous one to be committed against the people twice a year.

There was a camp
much like Bergen-Belsen.
But it was not a dream about the Holocaust.
It was a dream about another Holocaust.

There were people (of every nation)
in the middle of the night,
civilians - men, women, children -
being thrown whole
(to be consumed body and soul)
by faceless men in uniform
into a smoking pit in the ground
and from out of this pit was thick smoke -
the smoke of poison gas.

There was no sound to the dream
only this terrible feeling of growing horror
at this appalling vision in greyscale
unfolding before the eye of my heart.

I felt powerless.
An increasing sense of panic overtook me,
wanting for the dream to end.

(And then the vision was replaced
by my Miyang Marie,
smiling like a star in the night -
a safe harbor for my heart
amidst all that darkness;
beautiful life amidst all this death.)
---<--@

Mabuahy ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Madness

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Salutation #18


(On Iran in the context of the Middle East Peace)

To all our national communities, Peace.

I do not see the threat coming from Iran.
I see the threat coming from the perception of a threat coming from Iran.

Whether one may be reacting to this threat
as in the US or Israel,
or one may be inadvertently projecting this threat
as in the State of Iran,
it will make no difference to any party
as long as it feeds the perception.

The face of the Dragon of War seem veiled
- for a time -
but once the threshold is crossed
and War is let loose in our midst, O ye nations -
will it matter to any of us then
what its chosen pretense may have been?

When we shall be left to behold the face of the Dragon
and our world descends yet again into another age of turmoil
will it matter to any of us then, O ye nations,
as the maddening darkness engulfs our generations,
what choice lie it sold to our hearts?

When the sign appears, it shall be too late.

- selah -

War is a creature of deception.
The perception itself serves the spirit of War
and War serves no nation.

This perception having been built and solidified
by years and years of division
is the gravity that might pull that embattled region
or worse,
our needful world
back into a new age of conflict
and reap for our generations the pent-up rage
of 2000 years of War.

It can only be counteracted by undoing what harm
years and years of miscommunication and mistrust
have created in and between the parties concerned -
the affected nations and their Responsible States.

Something that the politics of any side
seem averse at doing at this time,
or worse incapable.

My honorable compatriots,
that whole region is aching for a change
and I am becoming more and more convinced
that this change may only be effected
as a person to person, people to people transition
from national attitudes ranging from either ignorance and/or indifference
to one of a total commitment to peace and authentic human community -
from star to star, one whole sky.

If we shall continue on with determination with the path of peace,
here in our nation and here in our region
and especially
in the context of the Middle East peace,
between Israel and the Palestinians,
I am personally convinced that this perception of a threat
will eventually undo itself -
to the benefit of all.

But if we allow ourselves
and consequently,
our one family of nations
to be strategically directed by this perception,
it shall eventually lead that embattled region
to a place it does not want to be -
to the regret of all.

My fellow Filipino compatriots,
I believe all nations of our one family have a stake
at ensuring a viable option does exist for that embattled region -
the choice of a meaningful, sustainable, durable peace.

Hence, it is important that we are able to preserve this peace in ourselves.

It is vital that we can hold on to its vision
of a better, kinder, brighter world for all nations
even as it directly relates to us here in the Philippines.

Therefore, it is just as important
that we are able to make a committed and principled stand
on matters directly affecting it (such as Iran)
and the region (Middle East Asia, specifically Jerusalem)
central to our attaining it.

For this reason, I have thought to share with you
my own opinion regarding the matter.

I suggest you think about it, pray about it,
and even share it (as well as your own opinions) amongst yourselves
(or with me - for I am one of you).

Be concerned about matters of the peace -
in our nation, in our region, in the Middle East, and in our world.

Our world is in a perilous state
and though calamity might seem distant to many of us
here in our own Country,
when it arrives, it shall come to claim our nation
and all those communities under its wing
- quickly -
and shall neither relent nor discern
between rich, poor, young, old, male or female
of any creed, family or tribal affiliation.
For War is a devourer of peoples.

Peace is the key to a better world.

Not the false peace of the age that is past,
nor appeasement in any sense -
Peace as a paradigm whole, O my nations,
which is peace rightfully understood -
the necessary peace that prospers, O my people,
the belonging that preserves our generations.
---<--@

Terrorism is a crime not a cause.
---<--@

Mabuhay po tayong lahat! Long may our remembrances serve us. God bless all our nations.

War in the Heart

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Salutation #15

The roots of War is ancient.

Therefore,
War was never a choice that can be made freely
by any nation as itself.

The real choice all our nations must always make
- in every generation, and in every present time -
is peace.

So let this be our choice -
let our freedom be always guided by it.


(An exhortation to Israel and Palestine for peace)

Peace, I salute you.

Will it matter to us anymore, O Israel and Palestine,
whatever permits the Dragon entrance into our midst?

When the threshold is crossed
and War has again entered into our world
I say to you now,
War will not distinguish
between our nations what it wills to consume.

For War is a devourer of peoples.

Something terrible approaches our nations...

What matters to us today
is the strength of our collective desire for peace
and peace properly understood -
Peace as a paradigm over War.

Be single-hearted therefore,
in this quest for a durable, meaningful, sustainable peace,
O Israel and Palestine,
and cast away thy lingering and sorrowful past.

Recall to yourselves today
the hopes of thy generations, past, present and future
and establish thy feet upon the truth of thy belonging together as nations -
I exhort you to work to complete your remembrances.
Do the past justice
and relinquish from your midst
the darkness that keeps its hold on thy futures together.

O Israel,
you may seek to build for yourself today
an impregnable fortress of isolation
but it shall still be a prison for you -
do not make this a permanent reality.

O Palestine,
you may seek to strike out
with a sword meant for thy defense
but for so long as this sword of nationhood
seeks to harm other nations,
it shall always seek to strike out at you.

But both of you, O Israel and Palestine,
if you build on the right remembrances
have a great potential to prosper together
in the embrace of thy sheltering wings.

I exhort you both therefore,
to work to complete your remembrances!

Do the undying hopes of past generations justice
- and labor now -
to relinquish from your midst
the darkness that keeps its hold on thy futures together.

- selah -

O Israel and Palestine -
thou brothers, make peace!

Is thy long-suffering impotent?

Let it bear fruit therefore,
and let the nations follow thee
into brotherhood, into peace.

You are loved - both of you.
---<--@

Do not look for answers beyond 2009. For it was in 2009 that this choice for peace was begun. Prior to 2009, there was no choice. After 2012, it will be no more.
---<--@

Mabuhay po kayong dalawa kapatid na Israel and kapatid na Palestine! Long may our remembrance serve us. God bless us all.

War in the Heart

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Bangon Pilipino


Kaya mahirap ang Pilipinas ay dahil mahirap ang Pilipino. Ang bansa po natin ay naghihirap dahil napakarami pong Pilipinong mahihirap.

Paano po natin malulunasan ito? Babangon po tayo.

Marahil ito ang unang sasagi sa ating mga pag-iisip: Imposible! Nakakahirap po bang isipin ang isang maunlad na Pilipinas? Kapwa ko mga kapatid sa pangako, mas kawawa po tayo kung hindi tayo matututong maniwala muli at bumangon.

Marahil sa lalim ng mga sugat sa puso ng Pilipino ay minarapat ng marami sa atin na tumalikod muna sa mga sakit ng ating Inang Bayan. Ngunit bago na po ang panahon ngayon. Ang lahat po ay hindi na katulad dati. Ang bansa po natin ay nagigising na sa kanyang sarili at marahil ito po ay inyo na ring nararamdaman sa inyong mga puso.

Marami sa ating mga Pilipino dito sa Pilipinas at sa buong mundo ay may mga parang hinahanap dahil ang ating Inang Bayan ay tumatalima na po sa tawag ng Diyos niyang May Likha: Tayong lahat po ay hinahamon na nitong bagong panahon na bumangon.

Marami pong problema ang Pilipinas. Hindi natin mapagkakaila ito. Kaya sa mga epektibo at makabagong solusyon po sana tayo maniwala ng buong loob at hindi sa dami ng mga problemang ito. Dahil tayong mga Pilipino lang po ang pwedeng magbigay ng lubos at makahulugang lunas sa mga ito para na rin sa bayan nating Pilipinas, wala na pong iba.

Ang katunayan po nito ay ang solusyon ay nasa atin din. Kaya nating bumangon, kapwa ko mga kapatid sa pangako, tapang lang po ang kailangan. Tapang na maniwala muli sa Pilipinas at sa isa't isa. Pananalig lang po sa tawag ng Diyos at pagsisilbi sa tawag ng Inang Bayan.

Bangon na Pilipino: Mayaman, mahirap, bata't matanda, lalaki o babae - lahat po ng nagmamahal sa Diyos at sa Pilipinas. Lahat ay magkakapatid sa Pangako dahil ito po ang lupang ipinangako.

Mapalad ang Bayan na ang Diyos ay ang PANGINOON.

Mabuhay po tayong lahat.
---<--@

The Roots of the Problem


My fellow Filipino compatriots, to begin to understand the essence of the challenges that we as a people must presently overcome, we must understand the roots of the problem.

Here are the roots of the problem. They all feed into the one tree - the wrong one - which is the tree of the desolation of war. It shall certainly bear its fruit, but not for us, my dear people.

If we are wise, my nation Philippines, we shall begin now to lovingly tend to our own undertaking of Country - that we might work to bear the good fruit of our peace for ourselves and for others as ourselves which are those fruits pleasing to God and edible to all of humanity in time and unto eternity.

Here are the roots of the problem as regards to our Philippines:

Luzon - Corruption - diminish corruption in Luzon, spiritual - individual. Bind this evil in Luzon and its tide shall diminish all over the Country, bringing honor back to politics and integrity to our seats of government.

Visayas - Geography - unite the Visayan Islands, technological - national. Bind this evil in the Visayas and it shall act as a bridge that shall further unite the nation, consolidating the spirit of our people.

Mindanao - Division - build the peace in Mindanao, human - social. Bind this evil in Mindanao and we shall obtain from God, the strength to bring down the blessings of His peace all across our one Republic whole.

To uproot these problems from their roots is to also liberate each of the three stars in our Old Defiant to shine all the more brightly for each other. It shall make our Republic progressively stronger as Old Compliant (the false image of ourselves) becomes progressively weaker.

Palawan, we shall consider as a separate challenge distinct from the main challenges specific to Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao:

Palwan - Conservation - promote the national conservation of Palawan, ecological - political. Bind the twin evil of the rampant exploitation of the natural systems of Palawan beyond their ability to sustain and regenerate themselves as well as the resulting displacement of the indigenous peoples who are its rightful stewarts and we shall as a nation obtain for our generations a natural sanctuary; a place of spirit and rest where everything is connected with everything.

The challenge of Palawan concerns all the three stars together: It is here in Palawan where we shall as a nation learn the first principles that will lead us towards Energy Independence in 2045.

If we dislike something that is not ours as a people. Let us all the more perseveringly cling to our Old Defiant, imploring the efficacious aid of our one Almighty, instead of clinging to those things that shall soon be swept away by the rise and fall of the darkness of exile time.

If we are to be left holding on to what is ours, we must first learn to let go of those things that should in no-wise belong to us.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.


We will be described as human beings by promise of our birth,
citizens of the one Republic of the Philippines by will of national destiny,
believers of each our own honorable religious tradition by light of each our own individual faith and human reason,
common peers from among common peers in common creation by purpose of divine design,
and kindred beings belonging to the one family of humanity by nature of our common good will for all the nations of Mankind.

A Filipino is the heart that loves the Filipino nation.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Tree of the Desolation of War

Those who live to nurture
the tree of the desolation of war
shall certainly eat of its fruit
and the fruits of war is plain
and bitter forever.

Therefore,
let us return now to the native peace of our nations -
that we may eat of the fruit that sustains our humanity,
that we may be a support to each other as citizens,
that we may be a blessing to each other as nations,
that we may reflect the glory of the God heaven on earth.

















THERE WAS ONCE
an orchard filled with trees
of many kinds.

All of the trees in the orchard
bore good fruit save for one.

There was a tree
at the center of the orchard
that bore no fruit at all.

It was the largest tree of all.
It was also the most ancient of all.

It's great and lofty branches
overshadowed a third of the orchard.
It blocked out much of the sky.

And it drew up nourishment
from the soil meant for other trees.

Now,
the number of trees in the orchard was fixed
by the owner from the beginning.

To each tree he assigned
from among all of his laborers in the field,
a custodian.

For the owner had much property to tend
and not enough workers.

To each custodian in the orchard, 
the owner assigned a specific yield. 

And for this yield he gave a specified time.

He then left to find more workers.

- selah -

The trees are our nations

The great tree at the center of the orchard 
is the desolation of war. 

The custodians are the angels of the nations 
who are the keepers of our sacred remembrances. 

The owner is the LORD, 
the one Sovereign of all nations. 

And we are the workers.

But the custodian of the desolation of war 
is the great serpent of faded Eden. 

And he bids us 
- constantly - 
not to tend to our trees. 

At the very door of our hearts, 
the enemy of all human nations 
calls us not to serve
and to commit adultery
against our own humanity.

Time came 
and a great darkness fell upon our nations: 

The great cycle of the one celestial season is turning: 
Winter now approaches our time on earth.

Let us then work 
to complete our own remembrances 
with autumn leaves shed 
not so much for winter's sake 
but for the spring.

Let us turn away from the darkness.

Let us tend to each our own trees. 

And bear the good fruit of repentance.

Let us fight for the Causes 
that have established us 
a free and human nation: 

Sacred Life, Law, Justice, and Benignity.

Let us compete in virtue 
- as citizens to each other - 
and produce for God and for each other 
a yield of good works, ten-fold, 
a hundred-fold, even a thousand-fold!

Starve out the serpent, O my nation! 

And let our generations prosper far into their years...

Born to the Morning: 
This is our land and Now is our time.

Because now is the time for peace.

This is our time.
---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.



Have thou now forgotten
that promise long ago?
Return now to the wonder
and never let go.