Salutation #171

The First Day,
God spoke Light
and everything in everything
and all that is in all
became for Him.



(The First Day)

Truth
imparts form to the formless.
Knowledge is made meaningful because of it.
Formlessness creates form.
Form allows knowledge to be studied.
The understanding of knowledge is the labor of science.
But the labor of Man is to know the Truth.

Man through his labor learns knowledge.
For knowledge is the reward of study.
He receives it only through his learning
and is taught to his mind only because
it has preceded his being.

For all knowledge have existed before Man
and is possessed by him according to his labors,
it is given him only for a time - and passes away forever.

It is vanity to love knowledge for knowledge alone is vanity.

The learned profit not without a love of learning
and keep it not if they were wise.
For the profit of learning
lies not in an understanding of knowledge
but in an understanding of the truth.

He is one who sees the field
and knows the treasure that is hidden within
and so he sells everything he owned to buy the field
that he may cherish it forever.

Knowledge is received but truth is sought -
one is the reward of virtue, and the other a grace of faith.
All knowledge passes away, it is like time - a thing borrowed,
but the truth once possessed is possessed forever.

Happy those who possess the truth!
They are those whose spirits are poor
who in their poverty shall inherit the earth.

Knowledge is burdensome yet
when placed in the service of the truth
become easy and light.

Knowledge profits not the soul yet
when understood in the truth
is the gain of wisdom.

Science profits not the man yet
when understood in the truth
is the gain of all men.

For all knowledge
that is kept like a treasure rots -
its everlasting value lies in the giving away,
ever like tears shed for love of others
ever like a light shone in the darkness of the night -
but the wisdom of this freedom
shall ever return to thee, darling Starshine,
for ever by the grace of God,
truth shall set men free.
---<--@

Salutation #118

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8: 28



(Whatever They May Be)

THERE ARE EVENTS
beloved Starshine, 

in the life of individuals

and in the life of nations

that God permits to happen

for purposes the LORD,

in His infinite Wisdom,

did decisively foresee in Eternity

which for reasons

He has reserved to Himself alone

He has deigned fit

to reveal for us

for our own safety and progress

through various instruments

only at appointed times.

If we learn to discern

these moments in our lives

and in the life of our nations -

If we learn the lessons

Providence is trying to teach us

through these choice events -

whatever they may be...

If we understand how it is to listen, 

and if we remain willing to learn, 

alone or with others -

we may only profit from them.

---<--@

Salutation #87

Judgment is the faculty of our soul - that -

deals with separating truth from untruth;

Light from Darkness.

(Decide)

To remove or to acquit?

Let me tell you this - decide.

Let us decide - and -

let us defend our decision together.

No nation is ruled by random chance.

There will be consequences

for every decision

we take* as a Country - good or bad.

(*Individual citizens make decisions,

our Congress takes them - in the context of this trial,

this means our incumbent citizen-servants

in the Senate, our Senator-Judges.

This is very important to understand.)

But if our immutable will - is -

to be true to the purpose

our God has established us, a nation

- imperfect though we may be -

all these imperfect choices

the LORD shall deign to bless.

And these shall ultimately lead our nation

- from generation to generation -

unto the Dawn!

For it is not we

who leads unto the Dawn, my people,

it is the LORD!

Personally speaking,
as your fellow citizen equally engaged
in this one Republic undertaking of Country,

I am ultimately inclined
to support our President Noy

for it is my conviction - that -
I must always defer to the Office

upon whose necessary authority

- every one of our presidents -

stands before we, the people.

- selah -

(I have other reasons

to support President Noy

- but they are wholly personal -

and so I shall exclude them

here in our consideration.)

But - good or bad - ultimately,

it is your choices we must defend, O my people,

so make these choices well and - decide.

---<--@

Think about it -

(Refer to our 2nd Monthly Exercise)

Whatever happens here, we can not exclude a Filipino from being a Filipino.

We still have to take care of each other.

We are expected to only choose our friends, this is the only correct choice.

So we must - with all peoples and with all nations, abide in peace and good will. Our enemies make themselves.

For our values are the values of peace.

NOTE: A representative democracy does not exclude the participation of the people so make an informed decision and let your representatives know - write them, text them, twitter them, or pm them in facebook - express your opinions through the right channels. Above all, we must stand together as one nation.

On the first day of trial, at the closing - Senator Enrile was right to caution us about who we are - we are a nation, not a mob. (20120116)

- selah -

I will cherish and understand our Republic endeavor - it is the foundation of our democratic processes in the political, social and juridical institutions and representative traditions that maintain the good order of our public peace that shelter and preserve the life of our civil society.

And I shall maintain a constant vigilance over our democracy, participating in the labors that enrich and advance the peace of our Republic, seeking every means available, to pursue the the common good of our people and realize the eternal vision of our nation established in our Constitution.

(excerpted from Citizenship with Fidelity)

(20120123) The uncertainty being braved through by our peers in the senate chamber - our senator-judges, the prosecution, as well as the defense - about this whole impeachment trial is proof of its own significance.

For we are making a path here where there was none.

It is a path that if it is crafted properly and tread justly, with the utmost care about all those concerned (the nation not excepted), shall serve as a comfort and a guide for those generations who yet to stand at the helm of our great and noble Republic undertaking.

Yes, it is important!

Let us pray it concludes decisively.

---<--@

The National Minimum

20110827

Salutation #47

A DEAF PERSON who goes through life learning to listen soon becomes wiser than a person who hears but never learns to listen.

While it is entirely possible - even desirable - to overcome this world without much speaking, without listening we are utterly ruined.

(The Wisdom of Listening)

If we are to proceed in the way of our learning,

from God to the communities embraced by His Providence,

we must learn to listen attentively to the reality

of the instruments of Providence.

It is always better to learn from persons

by our trust in the inherent good of others

- than to seek to unlearn -

the sincerity native to our good will

by nurturing any bitterness stemming from hurt

or from any perceived lack of good in the person of others.

This is always true with regard to those

whose littleness and difficulties conceal from many

the true value of their instruction

- all who are the least among others -

whom the darkness of this world blindly rejects.

For this must always come by way of false comparisons

that rob ourselves and others of our particular sense of uniqueness

and removes us further from the truth.

Therefore,

let us make it a rule of our everyday living

that it is always better to listen first than to ask first.

We must be listeners first and speakers last.

For much listening shall often reveal to us the answers

where much speaking give rise only to questions.

And counsel that is well-received

is worth more than a thousand questions.

But if we must know how to listen to the counsel of others,

we must also learn how ably we must bend - against our own will -

and this bending is the bending of obedience.

All our hearing amounts to nothing

if our listening does not lead to discernment.

For all our listening is a form of obedience.

It is wise only inasmuch as it leads us to the truth.

We must understand - first - that obedience merits much

only when we are taught in the way of mutual trust and respect,

in an atmosphere of understanding, and in the freedom of the truth.

When obedience fails,

it fails because it is given blindly

or when it is a choice wrongly taken away

or as a bondage that is forced against the will.

This is ignorance, timidity and oppression - respectively -

and it avails evil people much but then again,

by token of these same things,

it can also be said if we know how to listen to Providence

- that their evil is but a thing permitted -

by each and every one of us

who by token of their same evil,

are led to the leadings of the good.

For all tyranny that matures,

matures only because it is an evil allowed by the people.

Obedience - in a nation -

is neither servility nor weakness.

It is the strength to know the truth

as well as the resilience to uphold it,

in sacred remembrance of each other;

it is as the bending of a bow - aimed towards the infinite -

we let fly not because we are hurt,

we let fly because we have finally found

our peace with each other.

To not be ignorant, we must know to ask.

To not be timid, we must learn to know to ask.

To not be oppressed, we must learn to know

to always ask without fail.

---<--@

Most of the things that love says is never said at all.

---<--@

The Question -

An angel asked me, "...and what do I love, O heart?" For I longed to know.

It led me to a shop and showed me a thing I desired for myself but could not yet afford. Something I knew I knew but did not really think about that much.

"I love all these things that you love, O heart, that leads you to be good", the angel said to me.

"I love all the good clothes that was made for you, I love the cell phone that you'd so wished for so much, oh and that laptop - I love that as well - for you, O heart."

"So how do you love me in return?" The angel's question seem to echo from deep into my being for the lesson has now penetrated me indelibly right into my heart.

There was silence:

"You shall love the LORD thy God as one LORD alone".

"Make peace with the all of creation. Divide it not. Say peace to the river, to the sky, to the earth, to the animals (and the trees) of the earth and the fishes of the seas, to thy nations good will and to all thy fellow human beings, life and abundance. Do this if you love me."
---<--@

Our Land of Promise -

The nationhood that is our Promise shall not be as a house of cards, empty of substance, propped up by countless divisions, inspired by diverse and manifold hatreds;selfish, evil, reckless, irresponsible, and adulterous in the sight of God, Angels and Man.

We shall not be as a house in constant rebellion against its own lineages of truth - we shall not be this way.

We shall be the meaning that lives inside of our words, my beloved brothers and sisters of the Promise - the citizenship inside of ourselves - for ours is a spiritual renaissance.

---<--@

National Heroes Day and Eid al-Fitr 2011 -

This last Monday of August is National Heroes Day (August 29).

The following day, August 30, is Eid al-Fitr which is the event that marks the completion of the cycle of Ramadan for our Muslim brothers and sisters of the Promise.

Both of these days are legally recognized as public holidays in our Philippines.

In this pivotal year, my honorable Filipino compatriots, I bid us to welcome these commemorations as one nation and to honor these days, as citizens to each other, with remembrances proper to the peace of our Philippines.

Let us reflect upon this peace.

May we learn to keep it, one to another, as keeper and friend.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! Peace. Salaam. Shalom. God bless us all.

Ignite

Starshine,
your addiction is to life.

There is nothing worthy
about things that cause harm -
Destruction is only good
if it brings about growth and transformation.

So remember this
when you shall desire to find yourself
when you shall seek to one day be
as stars looking out from yourself
possessed by your own light,
being by the one Beautiful beheld
seeing far into the darkness
of our needful world:
Make no provision in your heart
for evil things: Here, Now.

For there will come a time in your life
when you shall be confused
when you shall cross an imperceptible threshold
into an in-between world -
By the ebb and flow tides of shadow and light,
you shall wander alone with the Alone
and you will be compelled to look for those things
that are meant to be yours
as well as forced to shed away all other things
that should no-wise belong to you.

So listen to good counsel, Beloved of God,
for it is better not to begin weeping
than to weep until the tears that was begun
are all shed away by our weeping together
for before you can shed your own starlight,
our most precious Starshine,
before the love in your heart ignites,
you must first shed away all your tears.
---<--@

Salutation #46

(The Wisdom of Learning)

We are - because -

we have come to know who we are not.

This is why we must ask our questions

sincerely seeking for answers.

For when we learn any truth,

we do not learn to use it - unless -

we are led by an understanding

of our need of it.

We become wise

not by the conception of what we know how to do

- but by the sheer weight -

of what we know we ought not to do.

Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.

We become wise - only -

when we become broken enough

by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.

Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.

For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Or we could learn to listen, to ponder and to observe -

To be able to surrender a measure

of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,

submit our independence to their discipline

and strive to remain in the humility of our youth

- the agelessness of little children -

to be able to absorb their constant teaching.

Fear of the instruments of the LORD

must also lead to a reverence of Him.

For wisdom that is learned

and wisdom that is transmitted

are one and the same thing.

In the former,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to never trust.

And in the latter,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to trust.

Both of these - being those things -

that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.

Such is the condition of our exile!

For if our bliss is to never know danger,

to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.

The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.

And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.

For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -

as all our learning must eventually disappear

from the confines of both mind and heart

to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.

All knowledge is a giving that begins with God

and a receiving that must end forever in God.

All our learning is nothing we can possess.

All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.

We possess it for a while as a means to find our way

and then we must return it - again and again -

to the LORD Who possesses all means.

Indeed,

learning that does not lead to wisdom

is like water that never flows - without purpose -

and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.

All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.

For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -

must be something we forever give away.

---<--@

20110821

The National Salutation

ALL SALUTATIONS are meant to invoke into our collective memory the reality of something good.

Evil being devoid of the excellence we tend to honor and admire is not something we commonly salute as individual human beings and as human nations together we do not openly invoke them in our salutations.

Therefore, we may safely exclude from this particular reflection anything else but the good in things.

"Mabuhay" is the salutation commonly associated with the Philippines. As such, it is something quite familiar to all of us Filipinos and even to other nations.

It is not a salutation of individuals.

Therefore, it can never be something meant to refer to any individual or anything about the life of an individual or about his or her virtues no matter how excellent.

So what does it mean when we Filipinos say "mabuhay"?

And when we Filipinos say "mabuhay" to whom or to what in particular do we tend to commonly - or even unconsciously - address it to?

Mabuhay simply means "to bring to life". It is a salutation that invokes "life" or the quality of it.

Now, the life of any nation is the product of the quality of the communities that exists within itself. It is therefore, a measure of the sum of all its relationships.

This sum is always positive no matter how deteriorated any nation becomes. There are no last peoples only disappeared cultures. There will always be remnant nations for as long as there are nations upon our world.

Because just as there are no such things as false hopes, only real ones; there are no such things as false relationships, only real ones.

But the quality of these relationships within the nation is a product of the quality of the national remembrance. For it is remembrance that dictates the quality of the national peace.

- selah -

Mabuhay is the salutation of our nation in its entirely and so must refer to the quality of the life of the nationhood in each ourselves as well as the completeness of the sacred remembrances we must keep through all our generations as a nation upon this earth.

It intends to invoke in the Filipino heart, a memory of itself.

It is a salutation addressed directly and simultaneously to all Filipinos from everywhere and from every time and is meant to return our every present generation to the timeless memory of our people.

It reminds us of the reality of our nationhood; its duties and responsibilities, its mission, promise and destiny. It says to every Filipino heart, "long may our remembrances serve us".

So when we Filipinos say "mabuhay" it should mean that we do love the Philippines as citizens to each other, and that we do understand it as truth in our hearts.

When we say it with substance, this truth empowers us.

It must elicit in our hearts a love that is not distant or abstract.

It must remind us of something real to our common hopes as a nation, something we can all meaningfully understand.

It must continuously rekindle in ourselves as citizens to each other a kind of ownership proper to our national trust and empower us with a love of Country that reaches right down to the ground of our national communities enabling every Filipino to freely bring the blessings of our peace into lives of the very least of our brothers and sister, the littlest Filipinos.

- selah -

The life of every nation is derived from its particular sense of unity and this particular sense of unity is derived from the strength of its peace.

Upon this peace (and the abundance or the lack of it) is established the order and the cohesion of all its national community.

A nation's life therefore, is measured by the sum of all the relationships within itself.

Mabuhay is meant to recall us to a memory of all of these relationships and in particular, to the poor and needy, not to remind us of what we lack but to return us to what we all must be, to the labor that our nation is purposed for by God, the trust that bind together all our generations, and the remembrance of the peace that must constantly live in each of us as citizens, one to another, equally engaged in our one Republic undertaking of Country - mabuhay!

---<--@

Salutation #46

(The Wisdom of Learning)

We are - because -

we have come to know who we are not.

This is why we must ask our questions

sincerely seeking for answers.

For when we learn any truth,

we do not learn to use it - unless -

we are led by an understanding

of our need of it.

We become wise

not by the conception of what we know how to do

- but by the sheer weight -

of what we know we ought not to do.

Wisdom never applies where danger is absent.

We become wise - only -

when we become broken enough

by the wrong things to ask ourselves why.

Fear of the LORD must lead to a reverence of Him.

For the safety of God is the beginning of wisdom.

Or we could learn to listen, to ponder and to observe -

To be able to surrender a measure

of our own freedom to the ennobling of others,

submit our independence to their discipline

and strive to remain in the humility of our youth

- the agelessness of little children -

to be able to absorb their constant teaching.

Fear of the instruments of the LORD

must also lead to a reverence of Him.

For wisdom that is learned

and wisdom that is transmitted

are one and the same thing.

In the former,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to never trust.

And in the latter,

we expose ourselves to the presence of things

we must learn to trust.

Both of these - being those things -

that we should never expose ourselves to in the first place.

Such is the condition of our exile!

For if our bliss is to never know danger,

to never know wisdom, makes it perfect.

The safety of God is the beginning of all learning.

And a knowledge of the truth is its own lineage.

For all true things ascend to God - just as surely -

as all our learning must eventually disappear

from the confines of both mind and heart

to return again to the infinite depths of the Divine.

All knowledge is a giving that begins with God

and a receiving that must end forever in God.

All our learning is nothing we can possess.

All our knowledge may only be kept in trust.

We possess it for a while as a means to find our way

and then we must return it - again and again -

to the LORD Who possesses all means.

Indeed,

learning that does not lead to wisdom

is like water that never flows - without purpose -

and like a river with neither beginning nor end - meaningless.

All learning that is kept like a treasure rots.

For every knowledge that must remain - as truth in the heart -

must be something we forever give away.

---<--@

A Filipino is a kind of love and this love binds us all together as one nation.

---<--@

Today, we remember Ninoy - his life, his loves, his hopes, his labors, his sacrifice.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

One Nation