Salutation #202

(Blessed are the Peacemakers)

Peacemaker,

Consider how
War in Heaven abideth not. 

Consider the choice
with which the Holy Angels chose
to freely honor the one LORD.

Consider how
Michael and his angels
fought against the Dragon and his angels;
how the Holy Angels turned away
form the lies of the Devil
and thus,
attained Peace
with the Eternal God.

Consider the Peace
that the Holy Angels attained
through the LORD, our one God,
and the everlasting Unity through which
the Devil and his corrupted angels
lost their place in Heaven
forever. 

All children of the light
in Heaven and upon the Earth
are known as thus, peacemakers!

Therefore,
let us live not to contend against War
but to become united in the Truth.

Consider how
the Holy Angels
in knowing not the truth
in humility were vindicated
in the Truth.

As thus
did the Sky of Day
come restored
in Peace over War.

For not as judges
against each other in Heaven
did Michael and his Angels obtain
an everlasting Victory
over the Dragon and his corrupted angels
but through humility before the LORD.

Let us be builders 
of human communities
and defenders of the peace!

Let us build 

(especially as nations)

and let us do this together 

that through human community
we may know what we may defend
in the peace we shall through God obtain
in behalf of each other's human good - forever!

Let us be united
(especially as nations)

in peace upon the earth
with good will in our hearts

before the LORD, our one God,
until War in all Creation
is no more.
---<--@

The war in heaven is in our hearts. 

Heaven is not upon a distant sky or shore but in the soul, an intimate and limitless treasure.

It is not above, not below, not beyond our reality but very much closer by, within ourselves. 
---<--@

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month... 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

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

I most certainly remember my Anne. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I do not think I shall ever forget.

Never again.
---<--@

What will happen when the wood is dry?

Our world is as dry
as a tinderbox, Starshine -

For
- everywhere -
there is a thirst for water,
water this world can not provide.

And
everywhere
- across our earth -
our Nations are drying up
turning to ashes from the inside out.

Starshine,
can you now see - that -

peace anywhere
is peace everywhere?

In our hearts first, Beloved -
...and then, in our Nations,
...and then, in our needful world.

Truly, truly,
it shall only take a spark,
but one spark to set things afire!

But what kind of spark,
our precious Starshine,
what kind of fire?

God's grace alone 
is sufficient, alleluia!
---<--@

The Question of Cain

Let us meditate a little more
on this war within the Filipino soul -

The absurdity of this war is
that it constantly propagates itself among our people,
multiplying the reasons why we should abandon our Nationhood,
when all the while, it is precisely this Nationhood
that can redeem us.

It feeds on the life of our beloved peoples,
overpowering the human spirit - from weak to strong.
It lies to our faces - that it means to do us good
and then proceeds to devour our children,
sparing none.

In war, the only winners
are those who learn its lesson.

War is the tutor.

Peace is the test.

And to pass this test
brings success.
---<--@

The Land of Nod

As a Nation, let us be reminded that to serve the power of our arms is to be slowly but surely crushed by its burden. If we continue the course, we might find a day when we realize we can not eat our weaponry nor this continued violence against our own Nationhood allow for our people the best and the brightest means to satiate our common human needs.

BUT we have in the past ceded the nature of this internal conflict to the power of arms, and sought to further invite this war among ourselves like it were a friend -

and so for decades, we fought over this war. 

That this so-called "friend" may by its power vanquish our hatred of others, our fear of their "otherness". (Is there such a thing as "otherness" in a soul that is one? We only mirror our own hate.)

And so we became enemies to ourselves. We fought until hatred and despair, themselves offspring to war, became another reason to fight. (Fighting for the sake of fighting alone is not a lineage that leads anywhere.)

We fought until attitudes of murder crept into our own self regard for the Filipino soul, and became as Cain. In ourselves we have come to also behold the person of the Adversary - in our brother, our fellow siblings to the one Nationhood.

If we are not careful, we will be like Cain - a fugitive to his own heart, restless for Justice yet unable to return to its source.

There is a certain kind of fear that dwells in the land of Nod, it is a fear of others - a fear that is not a tension of the respect - due to God and to our fellow human beings - that leads us in time to discover how to surpass its own limits - it is an inward thing, imploding and shrinking the soul of a person.

It is a fear that prevents common respect and human community and dwells in a restless land devoid of faith and trust, in God and Country.

Our Nation is proof against that fear, and restores Justice where Justice needs to be restored. Not the justice of Nod, but the Justice original to our Eden. (After all, did not the LORD give us our clothes? And more so, in the Gospels is found the greatest remedy to this restless fear - for the Seal of Christ dispels it - for Charity covereth a multitude of sins.)

We exist - in this particular regard - to do both the brothers Justice, Abel by Remembrance, Cain by the Love that lives within the compassion of our peoples - exemplified by our famed hospitality, our native trustfulness and willingness to give welcome to the person of the stranger; and the power to make of them - strangers to us no more.

The question of Cain is a question of Liberty.

Cain is not free to find it. So we do not expect answers from Nod. The answer is - in us - as citizens and keepers to our common humanity. And if we seek to do both the brothers Justice, then each of us must choose to remember - and then, to renounce the War that brought to the first generation of our Exile so much woe.

And a woe - let us recall to memory, terrible upon terrible, that we have had to live with ever since.

Nod is in the Unknown Earth. It exists in places where the Goodwill of our Peace - as one Nation and as one Family of Nations - have not yet taken firm root upon the soil of our world.

If we continue to allow this war in the soul of the Filipino to remain, we shall exile ourselves like Cain, and nothing that is lasting shall ever be built upon this world by our labors of Country for our Nation. And the fruits it shall bear shall always never be enough to nourish the goodness and the life of our people.

Nor shall we be any more good to other Nations than our chosen weakness - our fellow Nations who are kindred to us in this world - in the Truth - to whom we do rely and who also look to us for their reliance.

We shall as a people proceed upon the Unknown Earth as Cain, restless for Justice and thirsting for a true sense of belonging - yet fearful for our own Reliance - to God and Country; wanting to return yet unable to return - set apart from our Peace by our own lack of choice.

The question of Cain is a question of Liberty.

The Decalogue made it clear that murder is a transgression in the eyes of God - in beholding the Divine Law; this is universally recognized in the ethical codes possessed by the great lineages of the Children of Mankind and a common prescript reflected by the Law of the Nations.

In the time of Cain, the killing of Abel was murder - as an act of War. It was not Cain who did murder his brother. But it was he who opened the door of his heart to it. And "it" - the Advent of War - caused him to kill his brother - by his own hands.

At the onset of the Nations of the Children, the LORD introduced to the Nations through Moses and the faith of His Nation Israel, a common prohibition on murder. So in our days, murder is clearly and heavily sanctioned.

Because murder too was exiled to Nod - with Cain. And as we are - as Nations - called to gather all the Children of Mankind - in the way of our return to Peace - neither War nor its many offspring which are lies, hatred, pestilence, famine, murder and genocide - must have a place in our life and labors.

Yet where war is, there shall the shadow of its offspring linger. Is this war among ourselves our "friend"?

That we should mouth its lies,
partake of its ancient and relentless hatred for our common humanity,
clothe ourselves with its violence, and allow its adversarial spirit
to feed on the life and labors of our human communities -
only so that it may proceed to devour our children
ruin the order and purpose of our generations
and profane the peace of our communities.

The nature of this war among ourselves is such that it is an evil to us - only inasmuch - as we are - in ourselves lacking in the good. We are sufficient for the Peace we must profess. We should never be afraid of our own Reliance - to God and in each other.

War is, of course, a greater beast that the one we must together in this Nation confront.

But if we come together in this Nation of ours - in Peace, as a Nation - let us also understand, we are with other Nations together capable of staying the beast - as one Family we are able to build up a world that is better for Peace, through Love for common humanity and living Remembrance.

Nevermore shall the stirring in our spirits stir for War - but for the many hopes the past generations shall to us entrust, when we make our peace with their memory.

But first, we must end this War within ourselves by a free and human choice. (War chose us - it seeks for us to open the door of our hearts to it, we do not have to - there is really only one choice we have as a Nation - renounce it. Let Peace be our policy. Let us also wonder and be grateful at the foresight of the architects of our 1987 Constitution - are they not like us?)

I believe there are many opportunities these days to exercise citizenship with fidelity. And to be able to understand and to make this choice for Peace freely is a prime opportunity to do so.

Is it not good practice - to find the right questions - why our Nation must end this war, and let go of all the wrong reasons - how, and how may one proceed from choice - to civic efficiency - to human exercise?
---<--@

Practical Application -

Found here is the provenance where from the CARHRIHL is in spirit derived. The JASIG sought to draw the line upon the sand whereby we may together reverse the nature of the conflict.

That this line may only be realistically held under the flag of a robust and honorable truce is where the present difficulty lies. We shall overcome this difficulty or we shall be overcome by it.

Let us be for the overcoming. 

Amen, let us begin. May God continue to bless and aid our efforts - mabuhay!

The Bright Morning Star

There are in the soul of Man
Periods of Nights without a Twilight

When in our sorrows as human beings
Cast adrift into the darkness of exile
Which is a darkness of death
Death which at every moment appear
To our poor hearts as uncertainty
Descending as a veil of shadow and tears
Discomforting as well as confusing us all
We awaken to a thirst for the Morning
By a call that comes from beyond
The prison of the self

There appears before us
A bright morning Star

Lucifer was an angel of light
When darkness yet retained its innocence

He was the first of the Stars of the Morning 

Tasked by God to make every Twilight possible 

And to make peace with the Night
The night which was the first Night
Which was a darkness of rest
Rest which was
The life of our learning

We all know what he did

Lucifer in beholding Beauty
Sought to make his light his own

In so doing he scattered
A third of the Stars of the Firmament
And the Skies of the First Sufficiency
Were shattered

He fell into a Twilight
That is the beginning of his undoing
The peace between first Day and first Night
vanished from Heaven

There was a council of the First
Wherein Salvation was conceived
In the form of Man

Neither Lucifer nor his angels
Bowed to serve this creature before God.
The sin of the Devil's pride was conceived
And the realm of Angelic wonder and glory
became a sweeping Desolation

There was a War in Heaven
It rages on in our human hearts

Another Bright Morning Star
Now appears before us

The former
In the midst of the pain of our exile
Desire our complete and utter destruction before God
Calling us to enter into a form of darkness
Apart from our exile darkness
The darkness of sin
That leads the soul to wander
Thirsting restlessly about
Across endless nights
Without a twilight
Into the depths of a darkness
Which is madness
Unto a death which is certain
Everlasting

We are the wounded travelers
As in the Parable of the Good Samaritan
That Satan uses
By using our pain
And our fear
To turn us against each other
And multiply his dominion
Over our souls
Over the life of our communities
And over our own native
Human realm

For he knows
He had lost his realm
And his own place in Heaven

Now Satan seeks the same
For Man
And for all that belong to Man
Along with all the life of the Earth

The universe is almost barren
Because of him

He first brought ruin
To our First Parents
Then he placed enmity
Between Man and Woman
Then brought brother against brother

Now he seeks the undoing
Of the Nations the LORD hath sent
To make His Peace known
Between us and among us
And gather up through His Goodwill
All the Children of Mankind

Yes, we all know what Satan did

Another Bright Morning Star
Now appears before us

We all know what He did
Yes, we all know what He did

For this one is Christ the Lord
Not the equal of Satan
But his God
his God and ours
He Who Is - the LORD
Come to Man as Emmanuel

Jesus Christ our Savior
He Who Is the Son
And our Salvation
Long before
Any of us needed saving

And He desires for each of us
What we have long desired
For ourselves
But could not purchase
And could never purchase
Either by our own human limits
Or by our own weaknesses
And in spite of our sinfulness
The mighty power
And the efficacious grace
To set us all free
From the thrall of Satan
And his evil dominion
Over our one
Human habitation

That we might be forever
At home with ourselves
And also
Have a home
Forever for ourselves

A home that is free and at peace
With the many realms
Of the Father's glorious Creation
For many rooms
has the LORD's House
Our God

There is no other

Christ leads into Morning
Glimpses of an endless wonder
Endless joy
And endless Days and Nights
Of contemplating
The infinite face of Beauty

He seeks the weak
And the sick
And the imperfect
Because that is what
We all are
Poor

In Christ
In the midst of all this darkness
We are saved
By a Savior mighty to save
Not Satan's equal but his God
his God and our God
One with the Father and the Spirit
The LORD
Through Whom
We are made rich indeed
Wealthy beyond our imagination

There is no other

Happy the Man
Who knows the difference
Who seeks and is found
---<--@

An Incident in Tokyo

Early this week, there was this incident in Japan that caught my eye. Apparently, more than 300 copies of "A Diary of a Young Girl" was vandalized in public libraries across more than 3 different wards in Tokyo. These were Japanese translation of Anne's diary, much appreciated by the Japanese people.

I had personally tried to translate her diary in Filipino but found that it was beyond my competence to do so. I have not given up on trying to reserve its lessons for our youth though. What is vital in this work is not that its Jewish (although it is) but that it is human - very human, in fact - as we should learn.

To politicize her Diary is a flagrant crime, in my mind - because of the many motives for doing so, holding true to a right Remembrance of Anne and of her times is not one of them.

In my opinion, what happened in Japan is most probably a stunt.

However, it still begs to be investigated. There is a slight chance that this incident is an appearance (a symptom, if you will) of a deeper and more dangerous undercurrent.

Anti-semitism - along with other "isms" akin to it - is patently dangerous - to its victims as well as to the hearts and minds of those who feel the need to be empowered (as we all do - because - Man is a social creature) - it is supremely easy to be swept up in diverse forms of hatred instead of swimming against the current - as we all should do - who are alive and in the water - to the Nations, it is always in the weakest amongst ourselves where weakness enters into our Peace... and where tragedy soon follows.

If Anne is not a human being - as the pain of her history and a Remembrance of those dark and tragic times teaches our memory, then who is?

One who learns to hate must always find reasons to exercise this hatred. Therefore, if it is not the Jews, it is the Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Blacks, homosexuals, the disabled... you name it. 

Hatred will never and shall never empower us, my people - it shall enfeeble us.

<Recall now, Starshine - of the Four Faithful Causes, War will first subvert the Fourth Cause and work its way all the way up to the First Cause - to overthrow the sovereign will of the people and corrupt the sacred trust of the Nations - ALL THE TIME.>
---<--@

Salutation #188

Crafting a new order in the Middle East
requires the Nations of the Children of Mankind
to return to their deepest spiritual roots -
to the fundamental Human, Angelic,
as well as Divine purposes
for each of our Emergence in Time -
as a Family of Nations upon this world:
Peace, Good Will and the Building up 
of the Inhabited Earth.


Pursue peace and pursue it absolutely.

In commemoration of the outpouring of humanitarian aid and assistance to my Nation by the many Nations in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) - "Salamat po at mabuhay po tayong lahat nang mga Bansa ng mga Anak ng Sangkatauhan!" 

(Greater Israel)

Thou art a people, Israel -
before all things, before thou wert,
thou wert a Nation raised by the LORD!

At the Gates of Eden, thou wert!
Before the long march of exiled humanity,
thou wert a Nation among Nations, chosen.

In thy spirit, thou art a lineage -
born of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob -
a people united by the faithfulness of the LORD.

O beloved Israel, thou wert -
the first of the Nations of the Children

delivered from weakness unto strength in God.

Remember, thou wert - O Israel -

the first to know of the Truth of the LORD -

that God delivers, God provides, and God saves -

that all Nations may come to a knowledge of Peace.

---<--@

Personal Reflection:

All Nations are a people first. 

I too believe in a dream of a Greater Israel - Eretz Israel.

But the dream that I believe in - can not be begun -
if it is a dream bound by the limits of the Land of Israel.

For the Greater Israel I believe in resides
in the spirit that lives within the one heart of the Jewish nation -
Greater Israel as an Nation absolutely dedicated to Peace -
the Peace of God which is the common salutation
of the children of our Father Abraham
to all human Nations.

In this spirit is rebirth - for we can not return in time -
along the way that time itself has left us - in our common reality -
like it is to return to the womb - we can not experience physical time twice.

But we can experience
in our own memories - a rebirth of timeless Remembrance -
and obtain in our understanding, a spirit that leads the way to a newness of time
upon our hearts, upon our lives, upon our families, upon our national communities,
and upon our world - an age where we all can hope and work together - to become
the greater Nations in ourselves - one to prevail in Maturity over our lesser selves -
and rejoice in the shedding away of former things by our turning away from them
that we may indeed become the light unto each other that God hath intended
all human Nations to be - kindred in His Peace over War - forever. 

Salutation #187

The War in heaven is in the heart.

(Maturity of Remembrance)

God seeks to be near to all His Children!

In their Exile,
He has clothed them with Justice.

Justice
through each Nation
the LORD hath - together appointed -
at the autumnal Dusk of our Faded and Fallen Eden
to shelter with Peace the remnant peoples of all Mankind,

and who at the East Gate stands faithful guard to the Memory
that the lineages of Adam and Eve may hope to prevail - in time,
according to the great and mysterious designs of His Wisdom,

over the lands of an Unknown Earth, far away from familiar Sky,

cast adrift in the unyielding Darkness, across the Veil of Exile Time. 

And in despair of death, 

offered them Love and Mercy.

Love
in the one Redeemer
He hath appointed to save our souls,
- ever before any of our souls needed saving -
long before we were even souls - alive to the Alive -
deep in the waters of the Firmament, before the Earth.

And Mercy
through the Most Holy Incarnation
of that same timeless and ageless Redeemer,
in Our Emmanuel - Who is Jesus Christ the Lord -
Who through His Sacred Humanity, came upon our Earth
- to be with us - the God with us - in our poverty and suffering.

Christ 
Who as Word of the Father spake to all hearts of - the Truth -

that God is - across all realms of Earth - and unto all Ages of time,
one and for always - for Christ did love - the each of us, in each of us
- ever in spite of our smallness and despite the greatness of our sins,
with a Love that is forever - and did reveal to our needful world
the deepest and most profound expression of this Divine Love
in the Christian Mysteries - for the Salvation of all human Nations -
so that in Spirit and Truth, the LORD is, in all living hearts - as God is -
to be sought, loved, served, understood, praised, revered, and worshiped
without division - as one ascendant motion in time - for God is Love unyielding,
and in all things professed in honor of this Blessed and Eternal Unity
He dwells forever - as Father, Son, and Spirit.

- selah -

As Father to each orphaned human heart,
and the one Sovereign of all the Nations of Mankind
God seeks us - in the Peace we profess in our human communities;
in the National Belongings that are the direct expression
of His unyielding will of Unity, of Peace over War.

As Redeemer of all Mankind,
the Son comes to us - as a Servant of our common humanity -
to share in our littleness, and to drink of our bitterness,
and to join in our common human hopes.

Indeed,
Jesus came to call sinners to life,
and to gather all the lost to Himself.

And lived to serve and not to be served,
in a posture of offering, and laid down His life
through an act of His own Freedom - giving all -

- that the poor and the needy 

may receive sustenance and strength,

- the stranger and the outcast
may find the good will of Godly friends,
- the orphan and the widow
may come to the solace of a faithful Nation,
- and the weak of the Unknown Earth
may discover again the preserving salt of our tears
through Him Who wept for all our weeping
upon that lonely Cross on Calvary

for the Salvation of our common Humanity 

and the Redemption of our Mankind

with tears born of human compassion 

that flowed with the Blood of His Passion

and cleansed the Darkness of our Exile 

sealing forever the one Everlasting Covenant

that consummates the Promises of the Old 

of deeds by written word spoken in Scriptures 

by Prophets and Patriarchs of those times before

Passing them Over from weakness to strength

that Scripture may be professed as Light,

through Word of the Incarnate Truth, 

made Ageless and ever New. 

For Christ is our Prince, 

and everlasting above everlasting,

- the Defender of our Eternal Remembrances - 

mighty and able to save us - through height or depth,

in good times and in evil times, through illness and in health,

from weakness into strength, from grief to joy, despair to hope

across the desolation of the human soul and the troubles of this life,

Jesus is Emmanuel - in life and in death, forever - He is God with us.

And He seeks us - in the Good Will we must profess as a love of the Peace
He has entrusted to all those whose hearts have come to know the Truth, 

that God is, the LORD - one God alone.

- selah -

Yea, in the Spirit of the Father and the Son, we are sent - 

to be seekers of the Peace and witnesses in the Good Will of God thereof.

For as the Father sends the Son to call the Nations to Remembrance

and even as the Son speaks to each and every Nation about the Father 

- calling all human hearts unto an everlasting witness of the Truth -

the Spirit of the Truth rejoices in - the one Truth - that God is, 

and that He is God forever!

Alleluia to God, 

O Children of Mankind, 

alleluia to God, all ye Nations!

For thou wert a people saved - before thou needed saving -

and a Nation - gathered and justified - before God and each other,
long before thou wert ever alone and in need of His constant Peace.

Alleluia to God, 

O Angels of the LORD, 

alleluia to God, all ye Heavens!

For the LORD purposed - through time and all its Ages -
to bring unto all living hearts, a new rebirth of Freedom and Truth -

that the Original Glory of the Heavens and the Earths shine again forever;

in a time made new, of worlds made whole again, lit in golden glory.

Peace is over War.

---<--@

We are by each unique person 
Redeemed by our Holy Redeemer.

But the fullness of our Salvation comes 
through the strength of our common 
human communities.

In Peace we are purposed
and through it, we are obtained.

The LORD God therefore 

banished him from the garden of Eden, 

to till the ground from which he had been taken.

When He expelled the man, 

He settled him east of the garden of Eden; 

and He stationed the cherubim 

and the fiery revolving sword, 

to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3: 23-24

Innermost Freedom

There are four basic powers professed in freedom - choice, thought, want and fear.



Of the four, the first three are enabling forms, and the fourth an empowering form - all four are governed by brightness or lack of the light - in the person of Man, the first three are rooted in the spiritual and the last one, distinctly in the physical.

These powers bend and incline the will, shape and give force to understanding and govern the ambition of the mind as regard to knowledge and the obtaining of the truth.

These are the freedoms located in the interior most space of the heart - where only the LORD may go - they are sacred, inviolable, and distinct per individual - Angels and Humans both possess them (and, wherever the grace of God permits, in varying degrees, may also become possessed by them).


Freedom is to know Freedom

Human Nations

To be human or not be human? That is the question for the nations of this age.



Into this age, we shall not fight over distinctions in ideologies or religions or ideals or culture or race... No, the times will require us to produce the common fruits of all of these...

For we shall be tested by the challenges of this age by our ability to remain human beings to each other, not only as individuals but as individual nations - able to persevere in the strength of the human spirit and prosper in the one peace of our sacred remembrances.

We shall be tempered and refined by the obvious practicalities of these unfolding times through evils that only we, together as the one Family of the Nations (of the Children of Mankind), can hope to surpass.

The Advent of War

The first time Man saw in himself the image of the adversary of All Nations was when Cain killed his brother, Abel. It was not coincidental that the killing of the first innocent human life upon our world also inaugurated the Advent of War upon the earth.

Now is the time to see through the illusion of the Adversary to find in the reflections of the Evil in all evil things, a way to make peace with ourselves in our world - for this is our world (redeemed by Christ and preserved by our Nations) - and in finding our peace with each other, an understanding of the truth worth defending together - in each other with each other...

...the truth of our common humanity.

Freedom's Common Pursuit

Democracy is like a tree, and so like all things that grow and live and breath, must begin from the roots. It is a natural system of living life born of the seeds of remembrances that must grow where it is sown.

No one tree is the same in the Garden of our world... each of our nations grow at different paces, is found at different ages, yet all are born for purposes that are both fully human and fully divine.

We bear different fruits - each edible and good for the sustenance of All - and all worthy and lasting in the eyes of our LORD, everlasting fruits born from timeless works that glorify with seeds that share - knitting together with the fabric of visible creation, the truth that will prevail at the consummation of time.

We learn from each other not by making each other the same but by seeing in each other what is familiar in All - trusting in our differences, and sharing in our strengths - so that, in choosing to believe in our diversity, together find, in the familiarity of our unity, the peace which is shelter to all mankind; the one Peace of the one LORD.

If thy Peace is God's then know ye it belongs to All Mankind.
---<--@

Salutation #178

Of the third of the Stars
seduced by the Pride of Lucifer
who as Satan rebelled against the LORD,
all of the First who fell with the Dragon of War
hid themselves from the LORD Who is their Light
to become for All that Darkness which is apart from God;
a Darkness which is utterly hostile to all things in the LORD,
a Darkness which at the fall of the Dragon overtook the Night
and at the Division of the Firmament became a restless Desolation -
the Void of the Desolation of the Angels, that Night without a Twilight.

(The Void of the Desolation of the Angels)

All that became - the Darkness -
that became for All Creation - that Darkness -
which is of that spirit that is apart from the LORD,
being of Satan and all his fallen and reprobate angels
who at the hour of their final defeat at the Mount of Zion
at the hand of Holy Michael and the loyal Hosts of the LORD,

through the unyielding Light and infinite Power of the one Almighty,

became struck down by the power and weight of each their own sin
were all who hid in sheer terror of God, to fall forever away from Truth -
the Cherubs from their shining Wisdom, the Thrones from their golden Justice,
the Dominions from their limitless Nobility, the Virtues from each their Celestial Arcs,
the Powers from each the Fire of their Zeal, the Archangels from each their Spirit Mastery,
the Principalities from each their Great and Powerful Motions, and the Angels from each Other -
to become something else: Theirs was this Darkness, swift and terrible, corrupted, and infinitely less
than the Glory of who they were and the Greatness of what they were in the LORD and for Our God.

For the Sin of the Satan who was once Lucifer,
the first and the brightest of all the Stars of the Morning,
and the Scandal of the Dragon who - as it fell from the Light,
stole from the LORD, our God, a third of the First of His Sons
struck down from the Glory of Firmament, the Original Unity
of the Everlasting Waters, dividing forever Night and Day!

And theirs is the Night that was from Heaven expelled forever by the prevailing of the Day,
theirs the War that ruptured the Heavens, Divided the Firmament, and sundered our native Skies!
Theirs is this Night and the terrors that lay within the Darkness that stand against our Morning,
theirs is the cold of this Winter and the long nights that must come to pass before the newness of Spring,
theirs is the Void of the Desolation of the Angels and the Oblivion at the vanishing of all that never was
for theirs, at the sinking of every moment, is the dust of every sin and the ashes of every transgression
theirs, the hell fire and the worm, the prison and pit, the despair and Darkness - deaths without a Death,
theirs, the unknowing of all that is, the recall of all human and angelic memory, and the absence of God,
for all Evil is theirs, Satan's who was once Lucifer and his rebellious angelic host fallen from Heaven.
Yea, all of this is theirs, who by the guilt of their own allegiance and the testimony of their own faith
freely undertook to forever belong - neither to the LORD - nor to each other in God -
being in Eternity found to be neither in Service to the Truth that God is - that the LORD is! -
either during the Blessed Hours of the Day or the Holy Watches of the Night, one God forever!

Theirs is that Darkness 
which is not of the Darkness (of Creation)
that at the Council of the First imparted upon the Holy Angels,
a persevering grace of God and an overcoming love of All His Truth
and upon the evil and fallen angels, a blindness that confounded their pride...

And theirs is that Night 
which was not of the Night (of the Day)
that at the Council of the First hid from the penetrating wisdom of Lucifer,
even before the pride of Satan had spread to stain the realms of heaven and earth,
the Plan of the Father with the Son and the Mission of the Incarnation of the Savior of All...

For the Night that hid the babe Jesus Christ from the evil and tyranny of mortal Kings,
gave His Protector and Human Father, Joseph, the dream that took them to the safety of Egypt
embraced Him throughout all His blessed years on earth, shielded Him from the plans of evil men,
gave Him necessary aid and comfort in Gethsemane, and on the Cross so zealously waited on Him
is the very same Night that even before those times, now enshrined in the Memory of the Faithful,
gave to Him, that Hour of Our Final Victory; the Darkness that these days in behalf of the living earth
conceals for our safety, behind mere accidents of bread and wine, the Real Presence of Our Emmanuel
Who is our Light, our Life, and our Salvation - the Glory of All Creation - Who Being of the Truth, One -
is God - in Love of the Truth in Love with the Truth - the Son, and Splendor of the Father Forever!

And indeed, unto this Night forever belong this Darkness
that hid for every present time the Decree of the LORD from Eternity
that sealed for Satan through the Darkness of their own making, their Final Defeat,
and throughout God's purposes in time, hid from the Sin of the angels and the sins of Man,

through the quiet of its Solitude in God and with God, at the calm of those memorable Twilight walks -
the Peace of the LORD both in the Redemption of Man and in the Remembrance of the Nations
(of the children of Mankind) and preserved for All in all - the hope in the good will of All for all.

---<--@

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)

Near

Was there ever any real distance between our years? No, my beloved. Not when time is an account of the heart. For time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

Why does it seem 

so far to me these days 

when I just realized - just Now - 

the Holocaust is barely but 

two generations since, 

my Miyang...? 

Barely 

one thousandth 

of a thousandth of a second 

by its measure in heaven, 

we may have on earth 

already forgot... 

...and when we do forget 

we become less than ourselves - 

we become less and less human, 

we become less than our nations 

and thus, less and less able 

to know each other 

in the Truth.

---<--@

For me and my Anne, 
June 13 is Friendship Day.

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

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

Salutation #2

If you seek peace, seek peace absolutely.

(One Whole Sky)

Look at our time today
and the world we move in
- everything about it -
is born of the will of war.

There is much despair
there is much suffering
as all our kindred peoples
labor through oceans of tears
our common human hopes

- forsaken -
in the darkness of our time.

Let us then take ownership
- of the status quo -
and instead of feeding
into war's evil ambition
- the near limitless -
potential of our own souls,
let us apply ourselves,
under the eternal vigilance
of our one Almighty God,
to the labor of each our Country
by our absolute turning away
from the descendant gravity
of war's evil ambition
into the ascendant direction
of the one whole peace
and build upon our civilization
the sheltering wings of God's peace
to serve and defend
the life of our common humanity
wheeling as numberless as the stars
shining across the midnight emptiness
of this season of the sky
toward the twilight breaking
of the new millennial age
and a better, kinder, safer, brighter world
for all men, women and children
- of every nation -
of the one covenant family
of the nations of (the children of) Mankind.
---<--@

(produced 20080914)

Salutation #1

Can we navigate the earth from heaven at night with just one star alone?

No, we will most certainly need more than one!

Truth is, the more stars we come to know (who comes to know us), the more complete our map of the sky, the more precise our direction...

Starshine, we are the stars.
---<--@

(Salute to the Stars)

To all my friends -

who are my companions

near or far, alone or with others,

known or known to God alone

who are - from always to always -

one kindred grace, joined in truth:

I salute you with much love
being fond of my desire to serve you

through what gift I have to give
that we may fulfill each our parts
as common vanguards of autumnal Eden
entrusted with the peace of our nations
being bound to the one promise of old
to become as numberless as the stars
and sanctify the hopes of our humanity
by bidding them, turn away from War.

Let War's ambitions remain in itself

having no particular truth of it's own;

comprehending not itself from itself
knowing nothing apart from nothing;

perceiving creation as darkness entire

and not the great wonder of living light
that amidst the vast emptiness of space
fill the silence of the void with glad tidings
that bear aloft our hope for human life
and the pursuit of life's great promise.

We shall stand for something!
---<--@

(produced 20080902)

Human Rights in Syria Now!

Human rights in Syria now!

About 18,000 people
have already lost their lives
- and - their promise
in this struggle for internal control
of that beleaguered nation...

18,000!

This
represents a sizable tear
in the fabric of our humanity!

For
we can neither bring them back
nor can we resurrect
what good they would have stood for 
in our needful world
if their lives were not cut so short...

Now,
the opposing sides of the Syrian conflict
might have already decided to pursue
- through armed conflict -
each their necessary outcomes
and we might not be able
to change that now...

BUT 
if we - everywhere - stand up
for human rights in Syria - now
and if enough of us starts doing it,
and truly believe in it's work 
though we can not directly affect
the prevailing will of the opposing forces,
we can move to effectively lessen
the unwanted suffering of the Syrian people.

We have our own outcome to work for in Syria; 
an outcome seeks to responsibly preserve 
that nation's own spirit and energy 
for the task of the rebuilding 
that is certain to come after 
this bitter struggle.

Human rights in Syria now!
---<--@

The Unbelonging

When evil inspiration inspires,

remember your remembrance,

holding true to all things dear,

go the other way.

When the unbelonging beckons,

remember your remembrance,

drawing close to all things near,

go the other way.

James Eagan Holmes, you have no concept of community.

You still have no idea how much hurt you have caused. I don't know whether to be furious at you or to pity you; of whether you are a criminal or a victim.

But I sure am grieved for what you caused!

You have murdered your fellow Americans, betrayed the cause of your citizenships together. You stole the lives of your victims from their loved ones, dishonored their dignity, and humiliated their promise in front of God and your Republic.

(This is all not to mention what hardships you have now undertaken to place on the shoulders of your own family and friends as well as your own loss to the community that sheltered you.)

You sir, have made Colorado a lesser place by your presence in her and now, by your own deficiency, you have delivered yourself in her hands and in the hands of the Justice of thy own Country.

May God be with you and may He show You what you did not show your own brother and sister Americans in that theater.

I love the movies.

I have gone to the movies myself (on many Friday night occasions) with friends and family and am deeply disturbed by your crime.

You should be put in a room by yourself with Old Glory and the flag of Colorado to dwell for years as to what you have failed to do.

For it is what you have chosen to omit in your soul that is your true crime.
---<--@



Let us continue to pray 

for the victims and their families.

The hardest part of our remembrance
is always in the finer details, in the littler things,
where the truth is nearest felt.

If the pain is to be understood,
this wounding must be felt (again and again) -
the names have to be known,
their lives have to be glimpsed,
their tragedy re-lived,
their hopes seen and heard,
and their pain embraced.

Only then can the lessons be learned.
Only then can the horror be unlearned.
Only then can the healing be efficacious.
---<--@

A Personal Retrospective -



(20120728)

Cinema is an experience.

What we buy
when we see a "movie"
is this experience.

The product we desire
is an intangible reality that we get to keep (for always)
as (good or even better, better) memories.

The craft of cinema-making
encompasses a wide array of disciplines
that include humanities, arts, literature,
culture, and the sciences.

Film is only
the material for this experience;
theater is only
the medium for this experience;
the cast, the crew, the set, the props,
the time involved and the money invested -
all of these contribute toward this one event
so that when a ticket is purchased
or a licensed record is bought,
everything comes together.

We enjoy the experience of the "movies".

And since
this is an (intimately human) experience,
it tends to transcend physical (temporal) limitations.

- selah -

Now then,
when I was watching
the latest Batman movie,
from 10,000 miles away
here in the Philippines,
I kept on looking
at the fire exit
to the right of the screen.

Being conscious
of what had recently happened in Colorado,
I can not help but be this way.

(I wasn't afraid or anything, I was just conscious).

However,
since I love this experience
and I understand it - a whole lot more.

I simply will not let that nutcase blow it.
(Excuse me but that's what I told myself).

So I got my money's worth.



And Anne Hathaway frikkin' rocked.

Simply awesome.
---<--@

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.

---<--@