On Food Security

Hunger in Man we will not be able to fully address as Nations in exile. It is hunger in the Nation that we should contemplate - hunger as a social evil.

Food Security is the primary means we will utilize to defend the Republic from this social evil.

What is Food Security?

Food Security is the presence of the ready means to effectively address the basic question of hunger in our national communities.

Availability and Accessibility is key.

This is how I interpret it to be.

It is must always be planned in surpluses yearly, ahead of the basic food requirement of a healthy Nation. Necessary adjustments might occur to us, in the course of our build, according to prevailing climate and market readiness conditions.

Rice is the natural foundation of our Food Security. Rice shall also be the means we may use to measure our successes and deficiencies in this regard. We will develop Rice Sufficiency as a Region with ASEAN.

Consistent and cost-effective agricultural modernization, progressive, positive agrarian reform, the empowerment and establishment of "green" Provinces, the establishment of an efficient distribution network, and effective strategic warehousing systems in the Republic - done to address the basic question of hunger as a National development imperative may add together to form a structure whereby we may secure reasonable degrees of Food Security in behalf of our citizenry.

Hunger is not circuitous.

The means to secure ourselves from it through Food Security may not be as straightforward. But the core compass direction we will be building towards must always remain clear and quite resistant to any untoward politics, regardless of its positioning platform or guiding personalities.

We will be grinding at a stone. But obtaining a clear vision in this regard will allow us wear out this granite mountain down to a molehill long before our convictions become dulled.

Without the actual means to defend this Republic against hunger, the question of poverty as an adverse social phenomenon will always outwit and outflank both our thought and our will as a people.

Poverty is its own solution to a Nation determined. Providence decreed our labors to come together unto the good and were never meant to be but a futile suffering. But we have to have a clear vision.

No human being in this planet is immune from hunger. Even our politics must understand that.

Hunger as a National development imperative motivating Food Security simply seeks to adequately address this basic need in Man through the Republic as a functional, synergistic whole, impressing upon our citizenry that each Filipino citizen possesses an equal share in the Philippine State.

We owe it to ourselves as a whole, from least to great, to help each other advance the greater human causes Providence, through the heritage of our citizenship, have seen it fit to endow us with this same belonging.

Addressing this need in the Nation creates work. Labor - good, honest, gainful work - that affirms for our Republic the value of human life and, according to each our labors, elevates human dignity to a station met for every human person.
---<--@

The Nine Common Human Needs: A Just Society

My brother and sister Filipinos,
who are all my siblings in God and Country,
kindred to my soul through the blessing of Nationhood,
whose hearts long to dwell in the native spirit of our Peace
and whose spirits seek to mightily soar with soul of our Nation -
my word to each of you and your thoughts to mine, beloved Nation,
may all come by way of our friendship and arrive by way of the Truth
through our one common and national salutation, peace and mabuhay!

Man is an extension of his human community.

They say, my brothers and sisters, that the proposition of a just society implies the existence of an unjust foundation; that the reason for Man through his Nations to establish Justice upon his world is Injustice.

And truly, such is the case. 

Indeed, we recognize only what is good in this world because evil preceded us in our going forth - in our tribes and lineages - unto the furthest reaches of the lands of this Earth.

Evil was forever bound to this world, however. But we are not. 

Our going forth is an exile march and in our hearts, we know there is reserved, for all the children of our Mankind, a way of return to our Eden rebuilt.

There is a way that leads to the right places in time that is reserved for us.

Indeed, we expect to reach those places glimpsed by the hope that is common in all human hearts through the light of every faith precisely because we are expected to come along that way - to come along the great and inevitable circle of the totality and fullness of all human experience, unto a place where we may truly be - the promise and the life that the LORD, our God, did intend for each of us to be - before this time, before the onset of the pain and the poverty of our human exile.

How come then, if this way did indeed belongs to us, that we are met with so much trouble that at times we are completely overwhelmed along the way of our ascent? (You have to pardon my lingua franca, I mean all that is put down in this blog and I trust you to know it by now.)

Because we have to do it - as Nations dreaming together this time. We have to do it as a community that is in community with each other. We have to succeed as a world and as a family of Mankind.

Lest we forget as a Nation, Man is by first principle, a victim; that innocence is maintained until such a time as guilt is established in a court of law.

Let us look again at the proposition of a just society. There is indeed, in this world, an unjust foundation that exists and exists so that a just society may seek to know and to find itself - but it is primarily social in nature.

The most evil structures of this world are social in nature. It is their scandal that accounts for so much of the trouble we experience along the way of our ascent as Country - into our proper ages in time. And all of them are a slavery that consumes both the life of our souls and the souls of our societies.

Take corruption for example - an issue that stares our Nation in the face; and an evil that feels itself brave enough now to stand in the way of our Republic whole.

Its first principle cause is a crisis of Filipino identity.

Its effect is also a weakening of the Filipino identity.

And causes us confusion and doubt - undermines the life that lives in the society of our Nationhood and thus, propagates itself among us like a virus.

Its scandal furthers the ignorance that now infects with despair our ever deepening crisis of identity and makes that which is natural, unnatural. (For all societies must endure a never-ending search for itself to emerge, to prosper in time, and to eventually arrive unto the Truth - for hope. Despair comes only with forgetfulness, confusion, and the descent into division and the oblivion of war. In my Catholic tradition, despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit.)

We accuse each other of its evil. When the Evil in the evil itself dwells from within the accusations we often mindlessly hurl against each other. We can never rid evil by pitting it with evil. Cancer cells will never heal if we inject ourselves with more cancer cells. We have to return again to what is healthy in being Filipino.

I'm not saying here that no one is criminally complicit in the Pork Barrel scandal that set this Republic back decades. I have a fair idea of the totality of what we have lost through this sad and unwanted affair. What I'm trying to say is we are all responsible for the cure that will allow this Nation to surpass this test.

After all, are we not a just society? Because if we are not now. Then, we can never be later.

It is important to strike down the actions of those who willfully and maliciously conspire with the social evil of corruption in their desire to reap the rewards of its many sins, this is true.

In view of the above, we are a people endowed with an established system of Courts in this Republic. And this Court system exists within a greater institutionalized system of Justice in our Nation that along with our laws help us to make provision to protect the vulnerable in our communities from the evil and the scandal of social structures specifically unbecoming of our dignity and promise.

Therefore, it is just as important to also understand, that what makes us to become largely immune from the sins of corruption lies not in this Justice system alone but relies also in our capacity to resist the Evil of what is not of us - in ourselves. Our Courts may only make us safe so long as we ourselves remain convinced in the merits of our better selves and in the goodness that is worth treasuring in the life of each citizen and every one of our national communities.

Man as an extension of human community; that we as citizens are never disconnected from each other's lives - for the Sun of our Flag shines upon all, seeks to equally guide all, and expects all to to see all and to know of all - being gathered by each other in the light of its Liberty.

A just society is all we envision ourselves to be - as a Nation, as communities in one common community. And so we must constantly bring it forth not in our yesterday, not in our tomorrow - but today.

I do not have to further expound or elaborate on it. We know it and I know we know it. But let me say this, the greatest understanding of it may only be found when and where our unity is greatest.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is - 
the Maturity of Present and Living 
Human and National Remembrances.
---<--@

The Creative Ideal is this - 
know truth, and apply it - 
to love thy neighbor, and do it - 
to know the Word, and be it.

The Nine Common Human Needs

The Nine Common Human Needs: Functional Literacy

Education in an Age of Spirit and Thought.

The state of our Public Education in the 21st Century must change with the times. The advancement of the Filipino spirit through the pursuit of academic excellence is the central reason why as a Nation we maintain a public and a private school system - right alongside each other.

Education in our Nation is not exclusive to either public or private domains. Neither is Education as an institution of the Philippine State obscure about its principles and intention. This Republic shall and will maintain a system of education prescribed by our Constitution (Article XIV). 
---<--@

We shall forgo the mindset that private schools are better than public schools.

This is a remnant thought left behind by a system of things past - a manifestation of colonial mentality, if you will - wrought about by an unjust division in our Nation (between conqueror-and-conquered or those-who-subdue-and-those-who-are-subdued) that is founded upon a reality in our midst that no longer exist...

And have not existed for some time now.

Let me also re-iterate that while we struggle with these remnant thoughts, particularly about those past evils that our Nation and its spirit was forcibly subject to, we should not place any blame on things that no longer materially exists - our colonial past is not an evil to blame, but a memory we should bear in mind to properly place into our living remembrance of these present times. 

We can not hate the past for being what it was: Spain is to be loved and respected because we are a people of the Now and live not in the past, accounting before God, only the promises of the living moment, imploring Him to bring this Nation unto a morning worthy of our Flag and Anthem.

And in this moment - forever, mabuhay - there are only those who we elect to govern and those who elect who choose to be governed by them - freely, in a free, fair and representative system of Country wholly and faithfully embraced by a State that is entirely the belonging of the Filipino people - past, present, and forever.

Therefore, our public school system will co-exist harmoniously with our private school system united in their synergistic commitment to Academic Freedom.

Private schools are mostly specialist schools. They adopt means and methods particular to their design and are possessed of their own specific institutions accordingly. 

But our public schools shall be built as foundation institutions of academic and civic fluency.

And the entire Educational system in this Nation shall and must be re-dedicated in the service of the Filipino youth upon whose strength and spirit every new dawning that shall, God-helping, break upon this Land of the Morning entirely depends - in all our behalf.

Human ignorance is profoundly spiritual in nature. Knowledge is to us as time, only a borrowed thing. What profits the labor of our Education is how it shall resolutely and faithfully serve, in the name of our children in the Nation, the Truth.

We must consider this, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, when we think of Functional Literacy in the Nation: Truth is not in the eye of the beholder. Truth is what beholds us back.

This is decidedly a subject possessed of more breadth and depth than can be handled in this work.

However, for our intents and purposes, we shall limit our thoughts to the renewal and re-dedication of Public Education in the Nation as an institution of the Philippine State entirely. This Republic being what it is, private institutions of learning shall then be made to freely and creatively compete. God-helping, with our successes.

I shall commit for us here, some thoughts I have been nurturing regarding the matter. Let me also add that it is good that I commit these into writing now - that others with a similar persuasion to improve on Education in our Nation may freely add upon these thoughts.

K-12 Standard, National

Civics                                                   Academics
- Open Learning                                   - Structured Learning
- Realized "In"                                      - Recognized "From"
- Learner with Nation                           - Teacher with Learner
- Core Competency                             - Core Curriculum
- Informal Transmission                        - Formal Instruction

Human Fluency is Academic and Civic Fluency exercised in unison. 

Foundation Thinking - IS - the Foundation. 

The product of this Education system is in the students we successfully transform into the dominant spirit and thought that must pervade their chosen fields of service.

In common, this we shall call Human Fluency.

We seek shall to graduate human beings who are professional citizens and life-long learners in their own right - knowledgeable both in heart and mind.

They shall know their profession and know what to love in their Nation (and in other Nations) and therefore, apply themselves accordingly.

They shall upon graduation be - 

Work Ready - and - Career Worthy (or) College Ready - and - Career Worthy (and their Education shall be esteemed) Global in Currency - Local in Scope.

"Hindi hilaw, hindi over-qualified - talagang tamang tamang tama lang."

The fruit of this vision
in the Reality of the Nation is
Human Fluency.
---<--@

The Nine Common Human Needs

The Nine Common Human Needs: Security of Person and Property

Uncertainty is a root cause of fear in Man. This fear before our Exile was a Fear of Certainty. Both of these fears preserve in them the original intention that Man is to be - as the Angels, a social creature - a loving and faithful keeper to each other.

The former, which is a fear of the unknown - is manifest in each of us as an abiding and mortal fear of our impending temporal death, and exists as a consequence of our Exile.

The latter, which is the Fear - of the God Who Is - the Ultimate Truth - is a holy, loving, and awe-filled reverence that abides in the hearts of those who seek after Him - whom He calls unto Himself - in order to more perfectly love Him, and serve Him, and know Him.

The latter inspires us to freely strive for Peace and Human Community. The former bends the will and the spirit towards an understanding of the latter. The former must lead to the latter and the latter must enlighten the former. That the burden of our civilization may be light. One leads to safety, the other to freedom.

For the LORD, our God and Creator, is a God of Community - the LORD of hosts. He dwelleth in Unity and this Unity is Peace.

One of the main reasons that spur our human civilization forward is our need of a common relief from this fear of the uncertain. For it is painful.

The human spirit itself is driven by a universal thirst for a more perfect understanding of that Fear, which leads to Wisdom, and that Wisdom which is an understanding of the Truth - Truth that to our souls is Peace.

Aspects of this interior seeking universal to all Men and to all Women remain common to all our Sacred Remembrances; a spirituality of Peace therefore, remain as a common teaching in each our most cherished and honorable religious traditions as well - particularly, within our three Abrahamic faith traditions.

And so, in spite of the long shadow of War, we as a people remain yearning for Peace. It is more certain to us than War - in ways we often fail to readily understand.

AT THE VERY LEAST, in the sense that we are all equal partakers of this yearning (for Certainty) in our Nation (and in our world), we hold to an expectation as citizens that each of us may - in common - enjoy, security of person and property -

THAT dignity of each individual human life and the safety of its promise - from conception to natural death, along with each our respective right to private ownership - as a natural right and as a public trust - be duly preserved by the Philippine State.

The value of Sacred Life being already well defined, to further expound on the right of private property, I shall take from a teaching in Catholic Morality (excerpted from the book, Catholic Morality by Fr. John Laux, M.A.)

4. Duties Concerning Material Goods

a) The Right of Private Property

1. Ownership defined. - Not only spiritual goods, but material goods also have been placed at the disposal of man by God. But whilst the goods of the soul and the mind are accessible to all and do not diminish, no matter how many partake of them, a material good can, of its very nature, belong undivided only to one person, and the oftener it is divided, the smaller becomes the portion of those who use it. The right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of any material good for ourselves, to the exclusion of others, is called the right of private property or individual ownership.

2. Private ownership rests on the divine law and, taking man as they are, is necessary for the individual and for society -

a) the Seventh Commandment forbids theft as a violation of the rights of others. If private property were theft, as the French Communist Proudhon calls it, theft would not be a violation of the rights of our neighbor, but the right of the State. But God does not forbid theft as a violation of the right of the State, but of the right of our neighbor individually. In the New Testament parables such as those of the sower, the vineyard, and the fig tree pre-suppose the right of private property.

(As regards to plunder of the public coffers, it is the individual tax payers' right of representation, direct as well as indirect, in the official affairs of the State that is violated.)

b) Private ownership is founded on the nature and condition of man; it is a natural right. Nature imposes upon man the duty of preserving his life, and hence it also gives him the right to exclusive ownership in those things necessary for the preservation of his life.

c) The individual has natural duties to provide for the material needs of his family and the education of his children. But he can not fulfill these duties without the right of accumulating and retaining a variety of these goods. If all men were perfect Christians, then the difficulty would be minimized. But we must take men as they are.

d) Without the right to private ownership there would be no incentive to work and consequently no progress in the arts and sciences.

e) God is the true Lord and Master of all things by the right of creation. But man also, the image of God, can mold and modify things at his pleasure. The fruits of his labor bear the stamp of his personality; and thus becomes their true lord in a limited sense, as God is their absolute lord in an unlimited sense.

f) Under a system of common ownership (Communism) the distribution of labor and of the rewards of labor would destroy individual liberty and make all citizens slaves of the State. Under such circumstances, peace and order are inconceivable.

(As regards the peace process with the NDFP, it is not condemnation of each side our Republic whole must seek but a re-calibration of interests leading towards the beginnings of a common ground vision pursuant and compatible with the reality of the Philippine State, a transformation of the nature of the conflict, and ultimately a reversal of the mindless tides of prejudices and cessation of the cycles of violence that have consumed this Nation for several generations now.

In short, we must together make this Republic of ours work - and, in an imperfect world, labor for the common good of all. Upon our Peace - one, whole, and complete - much depends.)

...

4. Whether we possess much or little, we must always remember that we are only the stewards of what we possess, not the absolute masters, and that we must one day give an account of our stewardship. For as God never gives up His dominion over the gifts of life, so He never relinquishes His right over the gift of material goods.

The fruit of this vision 
in the reality of the Nation is -
An institutionalized, civilian Policing, 
Public Safety, and National Security Service.
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

Bring Back our Girls

 234 school girls kidnapped from a government school in Chibok. Those poor girls must be terrified and confused. Their families and friends must be heartbroken. Their local community must be in pain.

It was further reported in the news that the Nigerian government response to the incident has been less than the people of Chibok expected. In fact, it was almost outrageously indifferent to their plight. After a while, the contradictory politics of their State also became for them, a source of unnecessary distress.

It is easy to empathize with the humanity of the people of Chibok. Nameless, faceless Chibok - a human community of fellow living souls; of citizens gathered together into their Nation.

They are as we are. They dream the same basic dream of a reasonable freedom from the evils of the human condition. They work for the same ambition to simply be happy - as well as - happy enough in their community to be culturally and economically insulated from the darkness and despair of the world.

The shock of having 230 children forcibly taken from their families from within their own community must be all-consuming for the people of Chibok. I do not think they need more pain that that, especially not from their own government.

I certainly sympathize with my fellow human beings in Chibok who are my fellow citizen of the Nations. But I myself am confused by their government.

My fellow Filipinos, imagine the pain of Chibok's unbelief at the immediate wake of the incident. Imagine their tremendous need to be decisively led out of this confusion by the proper authorities from within their own Nation.

They called out to the Nigerian State and felt more confused by their own government response - or lack thereof. Imagine the pain of their slow realization, and their unbelief turning to grief.

Imagine their grief turn to outrage.

More so, imagine what those kids are feeling right now. I can not imagine those girls at this moment being able to think anything - only to feel. Feel there is some hope.

Hope is one of the main reasons - "we are" in our Nations, so that Justice may be brought to serve hope. And that hope may through Love and Remembrance be progressively realized through the economy of our generations - in behalf of our common humanity - for all our generations.

Truly, their kids right now - are our kids. 

After all, are they not like our own girls here in the Philippines? They need the love of their families and the affirmation of their communities. They are more vulnerable than our boys. They need to be shown they are loved and valued. And it also needs to be said to them - "I love you for you, it's ok to be you".

Girls are born beautiful. They just need to be brought up to understand how they may remember beauty as they grow up. They don't need to be told what beauty is - they know. They don't need to be told in what way they are beautiful as flowers need not be taught how it is in particular, to bloom.

I am sad for what happened in Chibok. I know many in my Nation feel the same way. I know many in other Nations kindred to us in soul also feel what we feel - for those girls, their families, friends, and community.

Let us not forget to pray for Nigeria, for Chibok, and for the stolen children of Chibok.

Let us remember in them also, all children who suffer the same plight - who are displaced from the love that gives them identity and strength by criminals who masquerade behind a cause that is either less than human or completely inhuman.

Let us remember all our Nation's causes are human causes. Justice, Mercy, Love - hope for life and hope of life - happiness, prosperity, peace.

We are different. Yet the same. This is why my Nation feels what the people of Chibok feels.

It is right to feel it. The wonder is why the Nigerian government does not.

May President Goodluck Jonathan set aside politics when it is clear that there is none to be had - Please, sir - cut the Gordian knot and be the leader your people need.

And - to Boko Haram - in behalf of those girls (and their dreams) they stole from us -

Bring back our girls. 
Then bring back their books.

May this incident be brought to its rightful conclusion. 

God bless the Philippines. God bless Nigeria. 

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

A message from my Nation's youth

The Nine Common Human Needs: Shelter in the Nation

Of the 9 common human needs, persistent deficiency - in the first three (hunger, thirst, and clothing) indicate material poverty, in the next three (shelter, human security [i.e. security of person and property], and functional literacy) - spiritual poverty, and in the last three (just society, authentic human freedom, and meaningful existence) - an unspecified immature form of tyranny.

Now let us move on to the next three, beginning with Shelter...

Tacloban is a community whose soul is a soul of sheltering. As such, the City itself bears the very name that dedicates her life - to the life of her people. Let us always remember what she teaches. Let us - just for a moment, stand apart from the politics of it. And see it straightforwardly.

After our First Parents were exiled out of our Eden. Shelter for Mankind became a necessity. And this is a reflection of our spiritual state: We all needed a "Tacloban", so to speak.

So Man sought first the natural shelter of caves. And this gradually developed - after the first human implementation of farming - to huts, houses, towns, cities, among the nations - into civilizations entire, across horizons and hemispheres, east, west, north, and south.

Everything that sheltered the soul of our human communities grew - only - because Man had Woman and Woman had Man. We must remember that the First Human Community is the First Family which is the nuclear Community of our First Parents - Man and Woman.

Exile and the conditions it produced in Man and upon our world - produced a very real need to shelter this precious Institution, completely human in nature but completely Divine of origin.

Adam and Eve needed a Tacloban.

And so when we shall speak of Shelter in the Nation - let us understand the fruit of this vision that it may be edible and good to the whole of our being human - that while we do need good, strong, secure houses and the modern benefits of hearth and home - a house shall always be a house - if the Filipino Family is left out.

And we, among the people of our world, have one of the strongest familial ties - our tribal essence is virile, and this makes our blood ties quite enduring. This of course, may go both ways. (For it may also be an evil visited upon our generations) Which is why we have to understand in Shelter - that -

a true Filipino - in his heart of sheltering - would desire for all Filipino families the best Tacloban there is - because - the beginning and the end of it - is - that we are all citizens of our Republic which is only one House.

And only one Peace maketh this House, our home away from Home.



The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
National Housing, Home and Family Life Services.
---<--@

God bless the Visayas, thou art of the three Foundation Stars of this Republic most patient of all, none may ever forget thee. 


The Nine Common Human Needs

The Nine Common Human Needs: Clothing in the Nation

The Devil and his angels 
hid from the LORD 
for the same reason 
our First Parents 
hid from God.



For it had never occurred
to either Lucifer or his corrupt angels
before the onset in their awareness of evil 
that the mortal dread that must arise in terror of God
was to be born of the coming swift realization
- of the real consequence of their own treason -
that they, by so choosing to freely cast themselves
- as realities distinct and apart - from the one Sovereignty
of their one Creator, did come to fully recognize
to their everlasting shame - that their own impotence
was - and shall forever be for them - the very real cost -
of their futile act of betrayal against the Omnipotence
of the one, true, and always-victorious LORD, our God. 

The most apparently visible cause
of the nakedness in Man and in his Enemy
(being the Devil and his fallen angels - who are all likewise
the Enemy of God, all the Holy Angels, and all of Mankind)
seem but one and the same - a betrayal of a most Sacred Trust.

But the conditions that have arisen from this sin
   as they have been decreed by God to prevail in Justice
   forever - in the beings of the Devil and his fallen angels
   and for a time - in the beings born of the lineages of Man
   that Divine Providence have reserved to long in sorrow endure
   and eventually - through the shedding away of our many tears,
   prevail from the fallen state of our Exile - upon an Unknown Earth -
   far across the generations of the Nations of the Children of all Mankind
are wrought not in similar forms, nor are they one act of Judgment.

For the roots of this sin of betrayal were born
from very different motives - and the grounds upon which
these seeds of treason were sown - are of two very distinct natures -
which neither Man nor the Devil can adequately comprehend
in the attempt to fully understand or relate with the other.

For in not understanding the other, 
one is lead - unto an understanding - in the self.

So that each act of Divine Judgment 
are wrought for either Man or Devil alone 
and have nothing to do with the other. 

For the Pride that leads to Perdition
and for the Humility that worketh 
unto Repentance and Salvation.
---<--@



Nakedness is another condition of our Exile. 

It is expressive of Man's fear of his human vulnerability
essentially expressed as a deep and profound fear
of all things life-giving and salvific (in God and in Goodness)
but seamlessly proceeds to rise into the surface
of our everyday human understanding as bodily fear 
of the many evils that abound on the unfamiliar
and hostile ground of an Unknown Earth.

And proceeds
as a realization in the human awareness - that -
as Man alone, each of us are weak and vulnerable of being.

The symptoms of these are fear (and daring), despair (and hope),
and our very human need to seek the safety of living shelters
of God - in our family, in friends, and in human community.

For we are naked
and we know that we are naked -
and in need of clothing - for our nakedness -
clothing fit to preserve our inherent
dignity and promise.

And so God gave us 
the initial clothing to wear... 
and so we are, and so we must.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
Access to Universal Human Healthcare  
and Public Hygiene Services.
---<--@

Taxes we bear with money;
Remembrance, with memory;
Poverty, with wealth and posterity;
Death, with the life of our humanity.


The Nine Common Human Needs

The Nine Common Human Needs: Thirst in the Nation

As blood is thicker than water and as water runs deeper than blood -
Hunger in Man weighs more heavily upon his soul than his Thirst
but Thirst in Man runs deeper in his soul than does his Hunger -
and can kill him more quickly than his Hunger ever can.



The thirst in Man is deeper than our hunger. 

Yet this thirst is also material in its form.

The need to quench the thirst
in the corporeal body in Man
is a reflection of the state
- of the human soul -
arid, parched, 
barren as a desert wilderness -
devoid of life and 
desolate of the waters 
of living life. 

For there is an absence in the soul of Man,
- a principal consequence of our Exile -
the sin of our separation from God.

This drive in Man is the result
of our very human quenching for God
that is manifest in the whole of our being
as thirst - and is the most profoundly human
of all the nine common needs.

It is an evil Man did not intend 
and exists to remind us
of our common need of the Truth
and the constancy of the living waters 
that flow from Its Hidden 
Abundance.

For we are in our hearts, 
its tributaries in time and throughout - 
called in common to fill the desolation of the Void,
expanding it - and filling it with the waters of living life
unto the completion of the purposes of God - for this universe
and - for time itself as we know it.

When we look
at the universe and into our souls,
thirst reminds us of our need of the Truth -
to quench the absence in our hearts
and fill our loneliness with togetherness
and satiate with God, the human quenching
for the everlasting waters that quenches with life
the deepest and most profound quenching in ourselves
and the purposes for which we exist -
alive to the Alive.

Man's thirst left unanswered and unrecognized
leaves him diminished in his humanity
and leaves him weak of spirit and of will
and this lack of concentration of the human spirit 
- leaves the national communities of Mankind restless -
vulnerable to stir with the stirring of the spirit of War
and the consuming flames that seek to endanger
with swift and terrible destruction 
what parched and dry timbers yet remain standing fast
in the national communities of Mankind.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation is 
Water Access and Management.
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

The Nine Common Human Needs: Hunger in the Nation

The hunger in Man is material. 

It is a condition of our Exile
and the most basic of all human needs.

The need to sustain the corporeal body
with the life of the earth - drive the hunger in Man
who takes so he can eat - and eats so he can live -
and lives so he can master his hunger.

It is - in itself - not evil.

And finds efficacious remedy
in the salutary nature of human labor
and the work of the Earth 
commanded by God 
of all Nations.

However,
hunger in the Nation,
when taken for granted 
may become for Man,
a source of material poverty
and exist as a social evil
contrary to the growth and development
of the human community.

This denial of hunger
(in all its forms, from slight to serious)
when in our own midst - feeds unto itself -
and give rise to the various social sins -
that worketh to prevent in the Nation,
the material prosperity necessary
to sustain and foster - even in our midst -
the individual human development
of our common Citizenry.

Material wealth - in any Nation -
is always a result of a people's
spiritual strength.

For there are two forms of poverty in Man;
the first one is physical and the other one is spiritual -
the former is always preceded by the latter.

When the condition is that the spiritual needs 
required to alleviate material poverty is present in the people -
then this kind of poverty is the physical kind.

And this is remedied by the work of the earth.

We are then,
by and with our connections
- with and among ourselves -
in God through our Nation,
prospered by our citizenship 
and material prosperity becomes for us naturally,
as an occurrence of our need to master
the hunger in each ourselves.

But when the same physical poverty is likewise
the result of ignorance or corruption of the spiritual needs 
required to address hunger, as the most basic of human needs,
and the soul of the Nation is dim and weak,
this kind of poverty is the organic kind
and dwells with the life
of the people.

If the Republic - were to mount a defense -
against Poverty in the Nation, it would be undertaken
specifically against this aforementioned kind of poverty
as a means to obtain for Social Justice in the Nation
a better expression of the Equality of our peoples.

The fruit of this Vision 
in the reality of the Nation 
is Food Security.
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

Mabuhay, Miss Malala Yousafszai!

This girl is a tigress; a passionate fighter for the cause she dearly loves: Academic Freedom, freedom for both the brave educators and the disenfranchised girls in her native Pakistan and all around our needful world to respond to each other's mutual call to human betterment and human rights through education.

What truly distinguishes her is that she is a witness to her own advocacy. The strength of her own cause is not something she acquires from others, but something she constantly lives in her life.

Look up to her, dear Starshine, for she is born of the same sky... as thee.

Mabuhay, Miss Malala Yousafszai!

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.
---<--@

The Legacy of Lincoln: Equality

Vindicate the Thirteenth Amendment
that prohibited from among the Many States
the institution of slavery
and win for thy Nation its intended victory,
in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln
and all who stand with him,
and in thy constant Remembrance, Citizen,
abolish the sin of inequality
in thy own heart.

The legacy of Lincoln is not perfect and was left to thy memory in need of some vital work, America. For the easy and idealized version of it conceals the hard truths...

The debt of remembrance owed to those dark and bitter times is without refute. 'Tis a labor of thy own heart, America, better perceived when it is claimed together with the memory of all those 600,000 souls who from thy 16th President's time intimately gave to each of thee, thy Nation's re-birth in freedom.

After the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, at the conclusion of the most bloodiest war ever fought within thy own Soul, the sin that sheltered and fed the many evils of slavery was left neither uncovered in the public forums of thy Republic nor defeated in the spirit of the Truth; it's overt symptom from within thy own Nationhood being merely and expeditiously prohibited by law.

For inequality was yet a living aberration in the heart of thy Nationhood; the victory intended by Lincoln was not won, and it's time never came to be.

In another hundred years, the incompleteness of this particular remembrance in thy Nation shall stir another generation to dare to ask the same question of Equality (the truth of which was already bravely fought for by Lincoln and company with visionary zeal and love of common humanity - at such an expense - during their own times and places - in spite of the greater adversarial nature of the times unto which they all belonged - for thy own good behalf).

For the Eternal Ideal of Equality, inked forever in the spirit of the Declaration that decisively conceived in time, through the great Providence of God, thy one Nationhood, was not consummated in the Truth after 1865, it was tried and tested then, America, then tried and tested again in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s own time, even as it is now being tried and tested still - in these sundry times, in these latter days...

For a question will ask until it ceases to be a question... what makes wealthy all Men, America? And what wealth makes any Nation great?

What was saved by Lincoln and all those who fought and bled with him on thy good behalf was a seed. How it shall prosper for all those for whom the seed was saved - at such great a cost to the life and promise of thy Nation is left - lovingly - to the life and labor of thy generations - today and all that is yet come - until the one spirit of Humanity - in the great and noble House of America - feels itself at Peace, and it's Truth - welcome, one and complete in the many as well as in the one.

Lest we forget, lest we forget...
---<--@

For the sin of inequality is a transgression against common humanity. Material is its form and has no quality to present to the spirit - only confusion - for it is neither a value that elevates, nor a virtue that ennobles, but a social sin with social consequences, foul and unwholesome to any human community.

Far from blessing, it curses. Far from healing, it prolongs death. Far from enriching, it impoverishes.

Salutation #167

Benignity preserveth, Justice bringeth, Law leadeth, Life giveth.

(A Just Society)

Let us be a Republic
where people know of goodness
and recognize in themselves this goodness
and having no fear of the spirit of our Justice
   (who likewise love and recognize the same goodness
   idealized in our Vision of a peaceful national community
   and protected by the prevailing laws of our Country),
have every recourse to and confidence in the same
and by the same Justice fostered in their Liberty.

Let us be a labor of Country
where no man or woman who is good
fear neither the goodness of other citizens
nor the triumph of the spirit of evil in our midst.

Let us live in this society.

- selah -

Let us be a Just Society!
---<--@


The Nine Common Human Needs

Salutation #161

My brothers and sisters of the Promise, I have always stressed both the importance of prayer as well as the universality of prayer.

Prayer is as necessary to the soul of Man as breathing is to his body.

There is no Man on earth - past, present, or future - who, having seen creation in a constant state of prayer, has never thought to look inward and gaze into the depths of that irresistible Silence within himself without asking the questions he knows in his heart he may only address to God.

No human heart is fool enough to resist the power of prayer. Indeed, all of creation around us - seen and unseen - exists in a constant state of prayer.

Therefore, no Man who has ever existed, exists or shall ever exist may ever truly claim to have never prayed; to have never gazed with his heart into the depths of mysteries unseen, to have never experienced the buoyancy of hope, nor sensed the immediacy of faith, nor the timelessness of love.

What is common to all our prayer regardless of externals is that universal human desire to experience the reality of the Divine.

For prayer is a common human need. It is an attitude of the human heart.

In a faithful Republic, prayer is protected and this protection extends especially to all places of holy worship - temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques.



In prayer is Peace because its results are the works of peace.

(On Prayer)

AS A RULE, my precious Starshine,
prayer is always more
than the sum of all that we can see
with our unseeing eyes.

A soul in prayer is a heart present to its thought;
a walk across the vast, empty deserts within;
a reaching out to places beyond self;
a looking above from within.

It is silence contemplating Silence -
alone with the Alone.

It is a growing, persevering,
often times frustrating work
born of great necessity,
out of thy love of God.

Prayer is an ascent to the timeless,
anchored upon ageless truth,
of all the things we love
and of the Love that all created things hope for,
most especially by the truth of thy heart of love,
and of thy faith yearning to God in prayer.

The way to God is a crooked line,
for we are all but human.
But the way of prayer
makes this way certain.

For the soul that perseveres in prayer
shall indeed profit
from the LORD Who rewards all things,
great and small, known and known to God alone,
when done out of love and fear
of the one common Creator
of all common creation, seen and unseen.

It is not only important that we pray,
and persevere in this way, my precious friend,
in private, above all in community with each other,
it is simply necessary for human happiness
and the well-being of the still small truth that lives,
like a mustard seed,
inside of every self
for all things true and everlasting
depend on a heart of prayer.

Prayer is spiritual.

Therefore,
there are seasons within the soul that range
from sweet to dry or empty
but never must thy heart stay still,
you must gather when it needs gathering
and to know also when to look beyond these seasons;
you must be vigilant,
pressing on till you reach the heart of God
to lay your hopes in the LORD.

So prayer may be long
or it may be short
but it must always be timeless,
its substance is the motion
that lives like a love longing for Itself.

And when the Silence shall to your bowed heart speak,
It shall do so swift as light,
being Spoken without words
and instantly manifest to your soul as winged truth -
then you shall seek to forget all other things
but God and God alone.

And in God you shall range far,
self cognizant of self,
intimate with the Intimate,
to dwell in holy remembrance of all things.

For far may your wandering heart be
but to love and in Love
you shall forever remain
when you shall in prayer persevere.

So do so, dearest Starshine,
and say AMEN:
Know for thy own self
why the heart that believes
believes only because it prays.
---<--@

(produced 20090223)


Prayer is the first thing. It is also the last thing.

Salutation #4

Of the common human needs that make us responsible to each other as citizens, one to another, there are nine: Hunger, Thirst, Clothing, Shelter, Personal Security (i.e. Security of Person and Property), Basic (or Functional) Literacy, Just Society, Authentic Human Freedom, and Meaningful Existence.

(Light)

PEACE, I salute you.

Evil which is poison, when once by mischief,

allowed entrance into that Kingdom within

becomes the malice that corrupt the purity

of the human will's intention for good -

dividing the one House of that Man within

against the Sanctuary of the LORD in the heart

making the soul vulnerable against itself

inclining fallen Man to sinful things.

For malice is the corruption that is sown

upon the ground of the human heart

to become those manifold and diverse tares

which are the vicious habits of sin

that overgrow with choking weeds

that evergreen garden of the human soul

where we take our walks with our God

in the stillness of our wakeful prayers;

that same timeless garden

that one must through God's good graces

cultivate with much virtue and light.

And sin is a lie that creeps

upon the threshold of the heart

seeking to assault and overthrow

the reign of our sovereign LORD within

that it may slowly overcome with its darkness

the golden blue of our native skies.

Now, our LORD being the one God Who is

revealed unto all of our shared humanity

in complete and utter finality

through the Sacred Humanity

of the Incarnate Word,

Who is the Second Person

of the one triune Perfection -

our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,

our one Truelight, our highest Exemplar,

and First of our First Magnitudes,

is the self-same God Whose Presence is

for all creatures, seen and unseen,

that one, holy and sustaining Light,

when once in exile time completely denied

by the arrival in the soul of Man

of an absolute and irrevocable choice

to embrace and to obey the will of evil,

which is the will of sin and the ambition of war,

become in absolute reality manifest

as a smoldering and inescapable wrath

for when the Daystar Sun is completely eclipsed

by rise of Wormwood, that false star of Satan,

this darkness shall by its terrible descent,

completely consume into dust and ashes

all that remains in that Man,

both body and soul,

suffering the first death

which is permanent

as well as the second death

which is everlasting.

What motivates Man in the heart

is either one - good or evil -

and so therefore, that tree of exile

that from our faded Eden cast

the singular lineage of Man

is that self-same malice that

in the garden of our hearts with God

must first be uprooted

and its poisonous darkness

overthrown from within our souls

that evil and its corrupting lie

may from our eternal good be cut off.

This is how we shall acquire

one standard of Liberty for all.

Therefore, let us be good,

beloved friends and constant companions,

let good things motivate us,

let us be a people of the good,

let us seek to dwell on true things,

knowing by heart unto where

and from Whom all good things come,

persevering always in prayer,

both in private but above all together,

with the seen as well as the unseen,

thus, becoming intimate with the Intimate,

and seek no more to profit from evil things

nor make provision in time for evil things

in the timeless abode of our hearts

dwelling with God, alone with the Alone.

For it is human weakness that is forgivable

but malice once by the Spirit of God challenged

when yet willfully and unrelentingly embraced

become that final, festering, poisonous rot

that shall turn into ashes

the timeless life of the spirit from within

that it may forever join Satan

and all that condemn itself to the hell

that shall soon claim all evil things.

Sin that is embraced with such utter finality

is indeed, truly unforgivable

not that our LORD is not merciful,

for our God is a merciful LORD

and kind to all creatures,

large and small, seen and unseen.

It is evil that is without virtue

and once made into a god

in place of our most beneficent LORD,

shall then execute its lethal reign

upon that unhappy soul.

Verily, none of us

should like to question motives

yet when motives are questionable,

indeed, one can not help but question them.

This is a root cause of division.

And so let us ever be mindful

of that constant counsel

that any division within our one peace

is the beginning of all evil.

What we should always question,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

are our methods together,

that we may never cease from seeking

to refine the many ways in which

the abundant grace of our God

that we though unworthy of such a good

have so abundantly merited through our Lord,

Jesus Christ, the one Redeemer of Mankind,

that we by our willing hands and loving hearts,

may become increasingly useful instruments

that diffuse as light into the darkness

this unmerited grace of God

shining for all souls without distinction

that God's loving Presence in time

may be a paternal comfort and a constant help

to our suffering humanity here in our poor world

so needful of heaven's timeless embrace

that hearts may be one in God,

and peace may be all in All.

We are human beings

and therefore,

we are a becoming in time.

We share in our humanity,

a lack that can only be filled by the timeless.

A lack that is felt in our souls

as a reaching out to God

and manifest in our bodies

as common human needs.

And so, lacking, needful, bereft,

we are come to a knowledge of God

and of each other in God.

Verily, as our faith sets us apart,

our hopes join us together,

indeed, this is what makes us truly human -

our need for God and for each other -

and so in our belonging together in God

we must come together to build

through these, the generations of life,

those truly human communities

where all roads constantly lead to the dawn

towards the morning that return Mankind

to the one Love that has forever kept

all of our nations close to Its own bosom.

A society of need is a human society.

It is a society that goes hand in hand

with a government of gratitude.

Therefore, we must profess

a politics of thankfulness,

being a people of hope,

and work to enable a culture of peace

of which truth must be begun

in the darkness of exile time

by the first of the generations of life,

which is this, our generation

as well as those members of the elder generations

who are similarly called by our one LORD

and whose wise and steadfast companionship

our good God has so generously blessed us with,

ennobling us by the substance of their experiences

and the strength of their years.

War is a tension that is insufferable in this new age.

But hope is also a tension,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

and one that is more apt to liberate our nations

from the mire of poverty and despair.

It is an expression of God's own peace

which is the Peace of Jesus Christ

and an extension of the one paradigm of the peace

which contain in the one whole truth of itself

the reality of a promise of old to all our nations

made by the one God of our Father Abraham

that the numberless stars that we are each called to be,

shall bless the communities of Mankind -

when we shall in the darkness of exile time

by each of our own life's width and breadth

through our LORD's unfaltering Light be made to shine

for each other in, with, through and for God and Country -

here upon this, our poor world,

upon this inhabited earth in the grip of the midnight of war,

as a labor of hope upon this last wintering,

upon a time of falling tears.

Finally, as regards to our one peace,

we can not, as a whole, abide by lukewarm halves -

we must each enable each other through God's grace

to profess this as a one whole paradigm,

one whole truth in the universes within our souls,

one whole truth in our families,

one whole truth in our local communities,

one whole truth in our national communities,

one whole truth in our regions,

one whole truth in our continents,

and one whole truth in our one planetary whole -

in reality, wholes upon wholes aligned towards life,

built on winged truth, an ascendant motion in time,

advancing the cause of life which is lasting happiness

through civilizations that with our nameless and honest labors

rise like incense to give glory to the God of all life

as the one family of the nations of (the children of) Mankind.

If we shall give war an inch,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

if we shall willingly allow

a segment of our shared humanity

to become vulnerable to evil things,

if we freely and recklessly abandon

our Lord's poor,

in the weak, the defenseless,

the displaced, the dispossessed,

the widow, the stranger, the orphan,

we shall indeed soon find

that war and the ambition of war

has again overtaken us all

with the final defeat which is its curse.

For what war does to one, war does to all.

So let our one peace forever remain, one whole one.

---<--@

(produced 20090128)