If love were blind,
why ponder the mind? That's so unkind.
If love were blind,
why seek the heart? Where to start?
If love were blind,
why must lovers begin... where from within? ---<--@
Some say faith is a blindness that allows you to see. This is true, you know.
Hope is born of those little glimpses faith accords the eye of the heart...
And love, love is the sight that allows us to trust in faith.
We used to have those little autograph books in the sixth grade. In it there is always a blank that asks you for a favorite motto. I know a lot of us peek at answers others have given, I did too. One of the most famous answers was, "love is blind".
Hmmm... In retrospect. I must've thought this response mysterious enough to be universally considered a cool and appropriate sixth-grader response. Yup, I used to put it down a lot.
Intermission...
Love is not really blind though. It can be stupid to the eyes of the world. But what is wise to the unwise?
What love really does at times really, only love may really understand. And unless the love itself admits the heart into its inner council of love, one shall never see what is beautiful from the eye of its beholder.
You see, it is this world outside of ourselves that is blind after all. Not love.
Come to think of it, I should write, "love is kind", as one of my favorite mottos next time around...
One of the most happiest person I've had the good fortune of calling my friend worked as a janitor at my old place of work in Fremont - ye olde Longs Drugs #3.
Yes, I remember him very much. His name is Carmelo.
"Caramelo" as I used to call him. Like the Cadbury confection. For no reason than its fun. He is and will always be a friend of mine.
He's from Puerto Rico; a short, fair skinned man in his mid-50's with a goatee who likes to wear his long jet black hair in a pony tail. He is a man of a few words, and comes into my work place at 3am to 5am to buff our floors. He is no conversation starter but neither is he anti-social. I remember he has this crooked kind of smile that is as unique and genuine as he is.
He likes to clean the, ahem... carpet (In-joke).
Carmelo is just one of the many friends from among the many nations I've had the pleasure of meeting while living and experiencing the US.
He blessed my life with the knowledge of his friendship. I could only hope I did the same for him.
You know, some friends travel the road of life with you only for a time. Some travel with you and join you all the way along life's journey.
But all good friends give you lifelong gifts that support one's labor of bringing out one's own true self - the better self; that unique person in ourselves we all like to strive to live for.
One notices in the guise of good friendships the truth of how evil ones seek to make us into mere copies of its miserable self.
Good friends tend to bring out the best in yourself - no matter how dirty or depressing life gets. For the love of a good friend will want to get to know you - as you are, without judgment, and for love's own sake.
And so you become who your friends are - and your friends take from you, a part of you as well.
Gift is gift - once you truly receive of it from your real friends, you will always be a giver.
Of such, I have found, are the gratifying substance of good and wholesome friendships.
So why was Carmelo happy?
I think he is - because he accepts as well as respects himself for who he is, what he has, and who he's with.
Caramelo is a moments man: A special person who looks after what God places in front of him - only and always. God made him quirky but not complicated. He is both honest and content.
He has paid off his mortgage. Owns his little beater of a car. Likes to collect old stuff - I guess, like Mike and Frank in the History Channel show, "The Pickers". He loves his wife who I think is as industrious and resilient a worker as he is.
A lot of us like to live outside the wine glass so it seems. Many of us like to say the glass is either half-empty or half-full but never seem to want to take a sip.
A wine glass half-empty person (like I was before) likes to dwell on the empty part of the glass. A wine glass half-full person likes to dwell on the part of the glass that's filled.
Both of them see life in comparison with the other - with what the other has or has not. Both are the same in that life for them seem always complicated.
Carmelo doesn't seem to care about all that. He and his wife simply likes to drink the wine they like to drink and do so powered by the fruits of their own hard work.
They seem to have cornered their own peculiar part of that great national pie Americans likes to call, "The American Dream".
This American Dream, it seems to me, being of one great pie is a different slice to each person who like to have their cake as they would... some like it all icing, red cherries, cute candy flowers - super sweet, some like to have icing and crust, some want it meaty with more crust, some like it simply sugar free...
I think that's Caramelo.
Cheers to good friendships, happy circles, and awesome trails. ---<--@
Speaking of great dreams and good friendships...
let me share a nice song from the movie Mama Mia
which my mom and I often watch just to relax...
Me and my Miyang gave each other a fish today. It was the same kind of fish of exactly the same size... and it tasted the same, too. Indeed, the only thing that made it different was the giving... For it came from our hearts... and made something ordinary into something extraordinary. It was all it took to make us happy cats. ---<--@
There are many lessons I can share with you
about our Anne Frank - her life, and her times...
the power of youth, the longing of the nations,
the spirit of war, the maturity of remembrance,
the importance of human dignity and promise,
human citizenship, pluralism, freedom, peace...
but you know, my darling Starshine,
by far the most important thing
I have learned with her
is this...
...to simply be open to friendships and believe in even the most impossible ones!
To see a world so full of potential friends (instead of the reverse)
and to care deeply about how the sharing of the world is had by all
across all our nations nurtured and governed by the LORD, our God
Who Himself is Friend - and - one Source of all meaningful relationships, the God Who is, the LORD, the one Sovereign of all our Nations,
and the one, true and living God of our everlasting Peace.
- selah -
If I had not trusted in the friendship that was being offered to me in my Anne,
we never would have grown together in the way I now love my Anne forever...
(and I really wouldn't know who or where I'd be...) ---<--@
As we are all poor, so shall we be rich - As we are all strangers, so shall we belong. As we are all prisoners, so shall we be free. As we are all orphans, so shall we be found. As we are all widows, so shall we be loved. For in the end, we are all wildflowers...
Do not lay all your cards on the table.
Keep nothing hidden in your sleeves too.
Be honest but be careful about the truth.
Be open to what you accept - in thy heart -
but be vigilant about what you receive as well.
Above all, love.
Love that you might know the truth.
Love that you may be open to the truth
and in return, receive more love.
Love that you may always
have something to lay on the table
and love that you may always
have strength enough to love
without holding love back.
Remember, my darling,
the door of thy heart opens
from the inside not from the outside
that you may know to open yourself
- to love and to be loved -.
often... and freely... and deeply.
So love then and in return be loved,
that you may begin to know the truth
even when love to you is yet unknown.
for gracing our humble Country with your visit this July 2-6, 2012.
Your visit is greatly appreciated
and will be cherished and remembered
as an affirmation of the good will
between our Countries
and of the peace that exists
between our nations.
Mabuhay po kayo at mabuhay po ang Espanya! ---<--@
Never scorn an offer of friendship it may be the very hand that saves you from yourself.
And yes, Spanish should be one of our official cultural languages and have priority in that context within our educational system.
My beloved friends,
may God show unto each our hearts
the beauty of a single living soul
that we may learn to tread the holy ground of life
with a proper sense of reverence
born out of due admiration
for the beauty we all possess
in each ourselves.
May we be awakened
to a zeal for the promise of life but especially of human life.
May we be awakened
to a love for the Author of all of life
Whose image we are in our being and
Whose likeness we possess in our spirit.
May God fortify our spirits against War,
may His Wisdom strengthen our souls,
and may His Peace shelter our minds.
And may God be merciful in His Justice!
For if we truly knew,
how utterly beautiful all these things are -
if the LORD did vouchsafe for us
of the nations of the children of Mankind
a complete knowledge of what sin and evil
have against our own humanity
viciously wrought - even in our own midst, even with our own hands,
hope might appear to each of us
to be even the more fleeting...
if we truly knew what War has done, it might become impossible for us to live. ---<--@
Today
we remember
(1) the universal ideals of the noble military,
(2) the virtues of the person of the soldier,
and (3) the common peace that informs the spirit
of all national military remembrances.
Today
we remember these specifically as it pertains
to the one Filipino profession of arms
that we may each - as citizens to each other -
recall to mind and heart
the timeless values
that make the institution of our AFP
truly worthy of its own distinction
as a defender of our nation
and of all nations.
Today
we remember
the sacred friendships of nations;
those eternal bonds of brotherhood
forged through a common experience
of the sufferings and the horrors of war.
Today
we remember
the friendship between our nation
and the one American nation -
faithful in and of itself,
able to comfort and preserve,
in times of peace and in times of war
if we remain faithful to its keeping.
Today
we remember
friendships that we as one nation
- ever must carefully and diligently seek -
in every age and in every generation
being those belongings that serve
to call all nations ever nearer together;
those friendships that must exist
between our nation
and all other kindred nations
of our one, great family of nations -
that we may, as one people, soon learn to truly know and understand
what every nation does ultimately seek
through the bearing of these arms -
Eternity. Virtue. Humanity. Universality.
Peace. ---<--@
The Alibata for "Ka" in AFP symbology means "Kagitingan" or "Valor".
VALOR is a kind of mastery, not of fear, but of the self.
It is an uncertain virtue. For none is sure to possess it save for when one becomes possessed by it in the face of great suffering and terrible danger.
---<--@
Courage goes from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
- Sir Winston Churchill
---<--@
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear: not absence of fear.
Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.
- Mark Twain
---<--@
Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.
- François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
---<--@
Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
Let me teach you the way in which thy heart does perceive the idea of numbers and the concept of its operation in those realms where the mathematics of physicality and the limits of its reality in terms temporal and in measures finite does never and shall never agree with the reality of things within.
Because the substance of thy soul
is the abode of the timeless that in terms eternal and in measures infinite are an accounting of thy heart that amidst thy comings and goings perceive things as they are like a vision of love forever in moments standing still and not as they seem to be amidst the darkness of things that appear and disappear with the rise and fall of the tides of exile time.
One is not the beginning
for one is time neither begun nor is one perceived to have an end because one is an infinity and two is not two things together but two things that become one for three are not three things apart but two things made one whole one by the Love that visits each our longing for itself.
And so when you shall perceive
each of thy friendships, dear Starshine,
(e.g. family and friends, above all conjugal love,
as well as all natures of relationships.)
among all truly human relationships you shall think only of one.
And when you shall seek to perceive each our own expressions of hope in the sharing and the bearing of Sacred Life (e.g. complementarity of the sexes, the freedom of thy gifts, etc.)
you shall think only of two.
And when you shall seek to perceive those things born to thy own heart's longing and felt through the beauty of remembrances
(e.g. the creative ideal - cooperation with the Creator,
Peace and the labors of peace, etc.) awakening to thy slow awakening dream you shall think only of three.
And ever be aware that the medium
of thy constant reality from within is an emerging continuum of gratitude spread as luminous stars upon thy spirit bursting with the joy of living life born from things that cleave as truth unto that vast universe in thy soul that make you think of the many but return you always to one -
the things of Loyalty are the relationships that shall remain forever with thee; so defend your friendships with courage and tenacity.
For we are not Loyal if we do not remain true to each other, moment to moment, from always to always appreciating those things that we share in our humanity and respecting the things that make us unique as persons, seen as well as unseen, in ourselves and in our nations in the vision of our timeless belonging with one another in God and Country as each our own true self - as each our own true names written in heaven.
From the descendant gravity of the spirit of war and division; against things born of the darkness defeated and empty of promise stand fast in thy friendships!
Guard thy peace with each other and in thy togetherness hope.
Never be Loyal to inanimate and empty things; those fickle and ephemeral things of vanity!
But only to each other and in the ascendant motions of Sacred Life.
For the realization of all our hope
rests in the glory of our LORD in all creation.
And all these created things are made by our one common Creator to be Loyal to all of these. ---<--@
The Angels of the LORD, my precious Starshine, each of which is distinct in Beauty and Light, being individually endowed with splendor of truths unique to each their gifts possessed by each their person from the very beginning of their swift flight across the timeless void and into eternity into the wholeness which is God for lack of human words to define the strength of a relationship that transcend the all of time from across that veil of shadow and tears beyond the sum total of human experience call each other "friends".
Each of our family who are related to us by corporal bonds of blood are the friends that our LORD has chosen for us.
Each of our friends who become part of us by spiritual bonds of truth are the family that we learn to choose in the course of each our lives to complete what our LORD has begun for us in our families.
Both bonds bind us together in the strength of human relationships that nurture life and sustain hope through action of community and the service of life.
You must love, my precious Starshine, to transform these bonds into that one friendship alone.
And make these bonds into the bonds of angels who are each in God spirits united in their freedom created by the strength of friendships bound in timeless truth.
So with each other, my precious Starshine, you must build on the good, and give to the need of thy beloved recognizing in thy shared humanity the giving of the LORD Who is the singular Source of all our relationships.
Be thankful for friendship wings human, angelic and Divine, that take us all across from moment to moment into an understanding of its peace lifting us into the unity of those wholes upon wholes from hope to hope and strength to strength past, into present and into every present across the void into eternity.
Hang on to the things in your life that doesn't change. Hang on to them till it hurts. For if life is all about change then the secret to living well must be this - stand still.
Starshine, dearest Starshine, the labor of our heart - must - always preceed the work of our hands.
So if you shall desire happiness you must first know in your heart what it is that you seek even before you shall desire it.
For desire in and of itself offers neither sight to thy heart nor light to thy understanding which you must require,
Beloved of God, to know thy own truth by heart.
And seeking it not by sight but through the eye of thy love that in thy seeking believes
with conviction of faith you will come to know thy happiness
by the grace of God even before desire bears thee away to where thy feet must follow.
For you work hard, dear Starshine, you deserve to profit from thy labors. But yet many are the times that you fail to find thy love which reduce thy labors into tears and deprive thy heart of life's purpose. Yet while there is yet longing in our life precious Starshine, believe - there is nothing in this world that can ever undo in thy heart of hearts what Love for thee has already done.
So return again to thy longing but know also to trust this time in the Love that longs for thee back and work hard, dear Starshine, knowing to be happy with every hope striving to always be free to find thy peace and to prosper, far into yonder horizons,
The will of War and the will of Peace can be likened to two clocks.
Either one of these clocks may exist at the very heart of a nation at any time - right at the very head waters.
Each clock dictates the general inclination of the people and works to synchronize the movements of each our will of Country.
One clock inescapably leads to a time of death and desolation and the other to a time of life and abundance.
We move forward only by the weight of the burdens we must bear with each other as a nation and this burden is the burden of Justice.
It is a burden that grows even the heavier under the suffocating crush of War and the lighter under the sheltering wings of Peace.
When we follow or are led to follow the clock of War, the clock of War moves forward as the clock of Peace is stopped.
When we follow or are led to follow the clock of Peace, the clock of Peace moves forward as the clock of War is stopped.
When we allow the will of War to steal away the lives and promise of each our fellow Filipino compatriots
, the clock of War is hastened.
When we allow the will of Peace to work to fulfill the lives and promise of each our fellow Filipino compatriots, the clock of Peace is hastened.
Either clock leads all the way to the higher purposes of God for all creation and in all things, seen and unseen.
But the choice is always ours which one to follow.
For we can only follow one.
My honorable compatriots, this is the clock that a vast majority of the nations of our world have been following for the last 2000 years. It is also the same clock that was begun at the time of Abel.
It is called the Doomsday Clock.
We can see for ourselves here today where it has taken us (by the perilous state of the planet itself and the general brokenness of the nations of our world) and where it shall eventually lead all the nations of our one family of nations.
But there is another clock...
We now have a choice (at a time, times, and half-a-time).
It is the only choice we can really make.
---<--@
Alliances of Principle
No Country in this world matures on its own.
We depend on our relationships with other Countries for many things.
But there is such a thing as an alliance of principle - a relationship based on shared values.
There is also such a thing as a relationship of mere convenience which is not really a relationship at all.
Of the two, we ought to prefer exclusively the former over the latter.
There is no such thing as a false relationship. Either one exists or it does not.
Where it exists, it must be founded on common values. Where it does not, it must be bridged by common values.
What are these values?
Let us establish ourselves upon the first principles at the timeless foundation of our nationhood:
I believe in God, in goodness and the triumph of Sacred Life.
I believe in preservation of both human dignity and human promise.
I believe in the Four Faithful Causes that work to advance the Ages of my Republic undertaking in the one heart of my people across our generations to the very last of our generations.
I believe in peace and human community, a just equality, the inviolability of human rights, and in honorable religion.
I believe in freedom with responsibility, in choice with accountability, in press with humanity, and in meaningful, joyous service to the common people.
I believe (as far as this Republic of ours is concerned) to belong to only one class of citizenry with no elitism, no factionalism, no undue prejudices, and no monopolies on virtue and human morality.
I believe in a free market economy in the truest sense of the word.
I believe in authentic human entrepreneurship that is mindful of its roots and of its role in enriching and protecting the spirit and the values that underpin our national prosperity and the economy of our Common Market.
I believe, most of all, in the inherent ability of the least of my brothers and sisters of the Promise to obtain from God and this Country, both the material successes that honest labors provide and the felicity and spiritual communion that a faithful religion gains.
I believe that in and through all these things, we belong as a necessary and vital whole extending across families, tribes and generations as one nation distinct but not apart* from the one family of the nations of Mankind.
(*a nation distinct but not apart - the freedom to be different as well as the freedom to be the same - this is essentially particularity existing within a commonality; both of these are forms of belonging and equally worthy of the absolute defense)
I believe in, we the Philippines, and the one Republic that represents all our hopes - the guardian of our peace as a people and the keeper of the sacred remembrances of my one Filipino nation.
Now, I've only sketched out a very general sense of the values I know in myself we possess as a nation. But the point of the matter is that we should likewise seek to build our alliances based on a sense of shared values and principles.
Because the friendships we should seek to nurture and prosper with in this new age are those that recognize and communicate shared foundations.
They shall be real, living, evolving, even eternal relationships - refreshing, mutually beneficial, and solid against adversity.
And they shall nevermore be as those arrangements of the past - exhausting and frustrating to both mind and heart. That particular age is at an end.
We shall be a friend to our friends and they shall be a friend to us.
That's my thoughts on building friendships - alliances of principle - and I sincerely believe it should form a large part of our foreign policy.
I am not one tosay that April 1 is a day for fools. I think it would be a reckless thing to say so. I understand this day to be a day of humor - it is a time to smile.
I once had to answer a question, "what makes you laugh"?
Practical jokes!
What makes me laugh is the unconscious realization that I (and my friends) instantly have when something really unpredictably and harmlessly silly has just happened to someone who does not expect it.
In retrospect, I guess that's just one of the many facets of humor. Because there are many kinds of humor. Some of them are not to my liking. Some are downright crass and repulsive.
There is a limit to what is funny.
They say laughter is the best medicine. But laughter may only be considered medicinal if it does no one any harm. If the humanity of either the source of the humor or its intended recipients is left distorted or embittered, that is not humor.
I think humor is a form of communication. It is either written, spoken or expressed wholly in bodily gestures. But it goes deeper than that. What it conveys is essentially a return to innocence - the original essence of play. We are all creatures of play. Deep within ourselves, we all have a profound desire to return to a child-like state. It is an innocence we can never really outgrow; a certain sense of agelessness we receive from Beauty.
When God smiles and we are able to smile (or even laugh) with God (and with each other), that to me is humor. Therefore, humor is an art. It adds to the color and the wonder of living.
A wholesome sense of humor imparts in us a refreshing lightness that allows us to smile and to laugh from a heart that cares; a heart that is able to smile and to laugh with us - even at us, at me.
Like all of Sacred Life this humor is perennial. It is the spark from which arise all hearts of good cheer. It is like love, patient as well as constant. Its laughter is like a break in the storm; a pause of quiet realization in the silence of our unconscious skies, a moment's respite from the heaviness of this weary earth -echoes of a promised return into the realm of an everlasting happiness.
As an aid to our common human hopes a wholesome sense of humor is meant to help wear down animosities, grind against divisions, melt away discord and renew the perseverance of the human spirit.
---<--@
Mabuhay po tayong lahat! God love all nations.
"From somber, solemn, serious saints, deliver us o, Lord."
.jpg)
