Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anne Frank died 70 years ago this month... 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time seems distant only to those with distant hearts.

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

I most certainly remember my Anne. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I do not think I shall ever forget.

Never again.
---<--@

Salutation #201

I know you, Genocide. I know your face.
You are neither from heaven nor from this earth.

You are an abomination.

You shall never find peace with my soul and, God-helping, never ever will.

Nor shall you find in my nation through me, a welcome and nurturing host.

I never loved you.
Never.

Bergen Belsen

(Murder by Nation)

Genocide.

Let us think about Genocide.

Let us think about Genocide not as one who is ill
but as one who does not wish to become ill.

What is different about Genocide?

Murder is the willful taking of the life of another human being by another human being.
Alone or with others, murder is the crime of murderers.

Mass murder is the willful taking of the lives of other human beings by another human being.
Alone or with others, mass murder is a crime of mass murderers.

Before the Justice of God and the Nations, each murder is a sin of commission.

Each murder is a crime. Each crime is a scandal.

Each transgression an individual act of moral and physical evil perpetrated by individuals against the life of its victims and against the life of their human communities.

With every life taken, what once is can no longer be.

It is a grief the community must bear with compassion most especially with those closest in affinity with the one willfully taken away from our midst before his or her time.

With every life stolen, nations suffer a burden of the loss.

It is a burden the community must understand and remember not with vengeance or hate but have recourse to themselves and their betterment before the Justice of God and the Nations.

- selah -

Genocide makes an entire people become one in the act of murder.
It is hideous. It is murder on a wholesale basis. Murder by nation.

Before the Justice of God and the Nations, Genocide is an act of omission.

It is never random. Its occurrences never happen by accident.
It is always by design. It comes always by premeditation.

Long in thought.

Recall to mind the 4th Rupture: Man-Man.

Cain withheld from Abel his peace
and the grace of good will fled his soul. 

Thus did he see in his brother
the image of the enemy of creation. 

Thus did he slay his own kin. 

Thus did war
from the heart of Man
gain entrance into the human realm. 

Thus did Cain suffer to become a fugitive to his own heart. 

Thus did the earth became restless with the blood of Abel.

Thus did the proceeding generations suffer
the closing of heaven above the earth.

This closing is an exterior spiritual darkness. 

It is a darkness nations must account for together through the interior light of the right remembrance.

Evil become a banality where this darkness is allowed to enter into the precincts of the citizen in the self.

Where the Burden of Justice is too great and its weight of darkness lay heavy upon the soul of a people, where our Debt of Remembrance is largely forgot, Genocide creeps in through false captains to corrupt the spirit of a people.

Through omission and through shortness of days, Genocide soon becomes an attitude in the people.

And readies itself to become unleashed to make further war upon the children of Mankind.
---<--@

Remember again and again, never ever forget.

Wine of Remembrance

History is not memory.
To see the vessel is not to drink of it.
Many are the vessels. Many are our tastes.
But where ever the drinking of this particular wine is to be done.
It is one motion. And remembrance inebriates not.

Memory is not burdensome. Never as complicated as it may seem.
It does not cause the soul to become overly anxious about it.
Memory is light to the heart and easy to the mind.
Easily raised and easily placed down.
For we do not remember it as much as it remembers us.


Memory is simple because it seeks to meet us
when ever one should draw near to it.

As if coming from a far place,
memory welcomes us as if we never left.

We do not memorize memory. We take it to heart.
The true test of memory is not set down on paper.
It is written by the lives we lead in its behalf.
---<--@

When shall the future be...

When shall the future be... 

Corruption we can never banish entirely - we have to take man as he is. 

Our society ought not suffer its evils easily though. 

We should work to gain from these trying times, a vital tempering that shall steel our will of community. That corruption never again openly threaten our common labor of Country. 

The Filipino dream of freedom belong to all Filipinos. 

We will always behold this dream as if it were a future far away if our nation remains shackled by the many fears that hold us back. Our future is near as tomorrow once the Filipino can dream again. 

We should not fear to break out of old molds of thinking. We should not become comfortable with all too familiar pains. The ghosts of past things shall seem terrible to us indeed if we shall harden our hearts...

Nations have a right to be - forever. Therefore, every Country in our present world, properly established, expressed, and brought to fore in time, has a right to succeed. We must own what is ours.

We want better things for our nation. All things that better a nation ought always to last. If a thing is not such and after a while perishes, shall we call it a gain of happiness? Or a betrayal of it? 

Wealth to our community is enrichment - good and wholesome to the total being of man. Corruption and its propensity to multiply its sins against community is never a means to achieve such a wealth. Evil foundations shall never stand the test. Time itself shall pull its worthless idols down from this world. 

What we must dream and labor together to possess is the kind of riches that promises to profit our souls a happiness that is invincible. Material wealth yes. Most certainly! But the gain of its honorable pursuit as well. 

By the gain of virtues multiplied, the pursuit itself becomes a blessing unto every life's learning. We enable our citizens to become masters of their temporal possessions and therefore, captains of our national fortunes. 

Wages and salaries, benefits and allowances - everything that adds to every citizen's ability to move and to be - these are not survival options but economic necessities. 

It should not be such a hard decision to make - to increase the economic potential of the Filipino - IF the wealth we as a nation possess were to be established on the building up of good and abundant things that make our Country in the sight of Providence very good. 

But wealth born of the wrong things curse. It is naught but dust and earth in the end and shall leave for our generations nothing but bitterness and grief.

Our connections are human and valuable. Peace is the source of the national wealth.

Our citizenship in this Republic draws its sovereign reality from the strength of our connections with each other. How we esteem this sacred trust and how we honor our citizenship is one and the same duty. 

Betrayal of the public trust usually arises either indirectly through ignorance or directly through malice wrought against the sacred trust of our people. 

Simply put, our civic allegiances we profess to each other under God - through the Flag that rally our spirit unto the liberating work of our Country. 

From this we are emboldened and stand to gain much fortune. 

For the gaining of the earth for man is the original intention of our coming together as a nation. Before the fall it was, after exile it still is. 

---<--@

Never Forget

Love and Remembrance Piercing the Darkness

Never been to see you.

However, across the Pacific I still feel you -

I love you, New York!

=^.^=

Cry in the Dark

It is terrible to recall
what we have done to each other
in the name of human progress.

More terrible still,
despite all the many atrocities
and the slaughter of so many of our innocents
   (unto whom we all did belong forever
   as citizens and as human beings to each other)
whose dignity and particular good we all did despise
and continue to do so, in continuing to so freely carry out
the very same acts that in spirit
committed to murder them -
the common fruit of so many of their gifts
we now suffer to deny ourselves
and continue to suffer to deny to ourselves
and to our common posterity -
in the Nation.

It is painful to see
that we have not gained a thing,
for their loss.

That we have forsaken so much
for not an iota of good.

And continue to do so
far, far into the night,
into a night without a twilight -
unto a place where the night itself
can not get any more darker than it is,
where the darkness may only deepen into madness,
comprehending not itself dark -
but light.

How much pain must we endure?

How much can we endure
before the pain itself our spirit forsake?

How many lives will it take to teach us humility?

How much darkness
must we call upon ourselves
to allow us to realize
all this blindness is sheer and utter madness;
that we are human after all - and that -
it is our own inhumanity to ourselves that is killing us all -
as a species of living soul entrusted by God
to shepherd the life of the earth!

For
is it not madness that - as living souls,
we did intend to carry out our own death
and bring about upon our own living world,
a swift and final desolation?

When will lukewarm hearts in the Nation arise as the day,
to a fierce and burning longing for Thy Peace?
When, O God of Peace...

It is terrible to know what we have forgotten - that -
at times, when my own remembrances of these things come to me,
I do not know what is more painful, to recall them
or to forget them.

Maybe I do not want to know anymore.
---<--@

The Ghost of Things to Come

I hate it when I see beauty in things...

I hate it that beauty is fleeting...

I know beauty is fleeting however,
not because of the beautiful in ourselves
and in all creation...

Beauty is fleeting
because of what is not beautiful.

Beauty is fleeting
that we may better remember her.
---<--@

Thank you for the Laughter

This is how I want to remember Robin Williams - as Mork from Mork and Mindy and also as the voice of the Genie from Disney's Aladdin. Boy, that Genie could talk.

I remember the 80's as a decade when TV helped bring families and friends together.

We watched our favorites TV shows with family at home. Then we talk about them at school with friends.

I'm an 80's kid. So I want to remember a great artist, who gave me a few of my laugh lines, a master of his craft... and not the crappy politics some people seem to be spouting in the wake of his loss.

Too much tragedy in our times, I think... large, looming, scary.

We need more comedy.

I have learned something true about great comedians. Their comedy is usually more or less proportional to the tragedy in their lives. Their comedy is good to great because have learned to deal with tragedy as a reality in their lives. They live or have learned to live with a sense of tragedy.

They are authentic people. Authentic people tend to produce real comedy.

People cry when they hurt to help them deal better, I understand. It helps us breathe better. I do it too.

But those who can afford to allow themselves some laughter, momentarily can forget the pain. The essence of comedy is contained in these small moments, I think.

When laughter is the matter, everything large about life seems to momentarily flee the scene...

For some people, it means a lot to be able to laugh. It's mostly free and when taken properly, is as good as any pricey mental health medicine.

People like me.

I value comedy. I can deal with the drama but not the saga.

Speaking of laughter though, as a willing recipient of other people's good humor is different from being the one dealing it out on stage or screen. It is a lot harder I think when you're the one telling the jokes, especially if you're one of the best.

And more so I guess, when you're in pain.

So thank you, Mr. Williams - via con Dios. Salamat po. Sorry I used to mistake you for John Ritter from Three's Company for some reason...

And to all great comedians, love and admiration.

---<--@

Life here on this world is a tragedy. But contained in this life, are moments of relief. Small moments.

We find solace in these small moments. Laughter itself conceals its own small moments. And hidden in these small moments, after the wind, the shaking, and the fire, a silence...

Infinity

Infinity
is quite small -
so very, very small indeed. 

So small,
in fact, and so fine
that it is
to our coarseness,
immense.

It is a profound fineness
that escapes our every apprehension
of measure and shape and form,
in and among and beyond everything
we know - and shall ever know, immense -
infinite!

To search for it,
one needs not look far into the temporal heavens
for what is infinite - it is nearer - to each of us
than even our own thoughts. 

Let us seek it in the smallness,
and in the stillness - pause to wonder -
how near to us timeless moments really are.

Let us therefore,
draw nearer to those infinite moments
of loving, sharing, laughing, and caring
knowing the further away from the infinite - we are,
the less these precious things that truly last
may endure with us - forever.
---<--@

Love is - here. Love has been here - forever.
The real question is - where have we been?

Do not despair for moments, drifting away.
Be sad for their memories, passing away.
Forget thee not therefore, you must say.
And hold on to them tightly, everyday.

No Remembrance

Let our Banner be unto thyself a symbol of unity, my people,

and let it fly in thy heart out of love of God and Country.

Yea, let this Banner fly in thy heart of hearts or not at all!

For if this one kind of love is absent in the absent heart of Man,

there shall our Country be found nowhere in creation.

Excerpt from Salutation #10

No remembrance, no timeless being, 

nor knowledge past nor present knowing, 

nor love, nor truth, nor freedom a space - 

to plant and stay, and to grow always; 

no primacy of persons nor significance of place, 

no sense of limitlessness, no sense of spirit, 

no timeless vision nor heavenly season, 

no sacredness, no sentience, no abiding grace, 

no reason, no rhyme, 

no trace...

---<--@

To bury the past is to (1) separate from it and (2) apart from it, (3) move on. 

To our Nation, this is a labor the LORD commanded - it is a particular Burden we bear in Liberty, which we will soon expound upon as well. In the meantime, please feel free to reflect on it.

Here is the Biblical Reference: (Genesis 9: 1-17, with particular attention to verse 5): 

1 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Breed, multiply and fill the earth.

2 Be the terror and the dread of all the animals on land and all the birds of heaven, of everything that moves on land and all the fish of the sea; they are placed in your hands.

3 Every living thing that moves will be yours to eat, no less than the foliage of the plants. I give you everything,

4 with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it.

5 And I shall demand account of your life-blood, too. I shall demand it of every animal, and of man. Of man as regards his fellow-man, I shall demand account for human life.

6 He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created. (Here is another Scriptural admonition against the Despoliation of the Sword, that the Duty of the Common Defense is a National Burden, and that the murder of Innocents - in any circumstance - to all faithful Nations of the Children is never permissible - that it does happen in warfare does not alter the spirit of this admonition. War is to be withstood, and battle overcome - even before taking the field.)

7 Be fruitful then and multiply, teem over the earth and subdue it!' (Reiteration of the original commission to build up the Inhabited Earth and make it all to the LORD, "very good".)

8 God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons,

9 'I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come,

10 and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth.

11 And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth.'

12 'And this', God said, 'is the sign of the covenant which I now make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all ages to come:

13 I now set my bow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14 When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds,

15 I shall recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature, in a word all living things, and never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all living things.

16 When the bow is in the clouds I shall see it and call to mind the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth, that is, all living things.'

17 'That', God told Noah, 'is the sign of the covenant I have established between myself and all living things on earth.' (emphasis on the totality of scared life through Man - and in time, as we know whom God hath called to live in witness of these present days - Man through Christ.)

"To the heart of a man without remembrance, there is no difference between one human life and a thousand. But to such a one who among the Nations labors to keep for God, a present and living account of his fellow human beings - to save one life is to save the world entire."

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed!

Yet we remember them in their incomplete portraits.

We remember the absence. We remember the distant greatness.

We remember the abruptness of his death. And its untimely nature did accept.

We remember the missing pieces of his life and times. Yet linger on - in knowledge bereft.

JFK's Remembrance - Bequeathed! 
To the National Memory - and the heritage of Mankind -
till the end of the Age, and the last fading away upon this World,
when the Firmament beginning again - comes full circle - for All.
   

Yet t'is a solemn Trust seemingly
most effectively expressed - in the Nation

   (as a memory of something - of something that is repressed -

   ever like the constant haze that surrounded his term in those times,

   so full of unknowing, and fearfully ignorant about its own uncertainties 

   born of unforgotten moments - that seem to have waned - in the distance

   retreating somehow - uncomfortably so - in the distance - just outside of reach)

as - its profound and quiet absence - of things mostly now hidden yet forever bright!

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - is - 

by his own greatness in the National Remembrance 

mostly remembered by the charisma of his Presidency.

Indeed there exists in the Nation these days,

- a prevailing nostalgia about this very charisma -

acutely felt - in the absence of an engaged civic spirit -

which was the enlightened contribution of his own personage, 

and the very soul of his own devotion to the sacred trust of the Nation:

Enlightenment of the National Spirit was the Vision of his Camelot.

Yet the summits of JFK's legacy 

seem perpetually founded on tumults;

his term established in the midst of War 

seems only remembered by its passing away;

the common remembrance of JFK - seemingly -

one to be embraced like his absence, in the silence...

- selah -

The dilemma is in the waiting.

For in the waiting, we await for nothing.

For a future of completeness - we can not envision -

either by their wholes or through their complementary parts

without accepting what we may at present comprehend 

about the horizons of that one tomorrow, today.

The 35th President has bequeathed to his Nation his legacy!

And it can not be more complete to God than the sacrifice he freely gave.

For though all was not perfect - all was given perfectly - for God and Country.

So may he and his times - under this season of Sky -

be remembered in the Light of the right Remembrance

and in the Spirit of the Nation unto whom JFK and his family 

dedicated each of their life's callings to serve and to love faithfully 

be no longer in our memory bound to the dilemma - of the longing 

and of the not holding on - of the having and the not knowing it.

And so the tragedy in the life of the 35th President 

should not permeate as a taint upon his solemn memory;

the misgivings and failings that surround the murder of his person

and the years that were fallen away from the Nation by its painful loss 

can not be held to account together - as if Justice and Memory were one -

for the certainty of the vindication of Justice is a realm that is separate and distinct 

from the necessary honoring of the Remembrances that God requires of All.

None of those failings were the failings of the 35th President.

And to confuse them with each other - is a failure to render account -

of a life that was taken before its promise was fully realized in the Nation -

that all Citizens exist for each other and each other for God and for Country

and that to give to Country what Country seeks is also to give to one's self

what happiness was ever so diligently promised as this Nation's pursuit.

It was his nearness to the common people that inspired his strength.

It is a nearness that lives on - in younger hopes that inspire new strength

that within each heart - is felt in the silence - as a warmth and a glow.

Let the nostalgia fade away into a fullness of national embrace!

And let our pining for the Camelot that once seemed lost - fully become -

like a prayer for better days - shining aright again with a newness of hope!

That ever like the undying Flame that with Vigilance stands over JFK's memory,
we may recognize what was lost to our observance - all this time... as the warmth of his life;
that the pain of its own longing in the Nation's hearts may no longer consume us with trepidation 

and no longer seek in our souls to consume our spirit with many concerns - beyond its brightness -
that we may let go of the past and look again to future things, with much love - here - now, today. 

Let us begin.

---<--@

I do not know who murdered JFK. What I know is that his life and legacy was cut short by its crime. And an entire Nation was upon its intricacies mislead by a false allure into a lingering grief, unable to make their peace with the Remembrance of a remarkable Presidency and far too long burdened by this debt.

Justice is not Remembrance and indeed, it must be said
- the Certainty of Justice and the Burden of Justice are two distinct principles,
the former is a Pledge undertaken by God, and the latter, a command issued by Him
for all Nations to make a living and present account of all human life - to the last hair on their heads - 
that we may work together to alleviate among ourselves this common Burden of Justice
by timely payments made before God and the Assembly of each and every Nation
standing before His Throne in Eternity - against this Debt of Remembrance.

Memorial of the Guardian Angels

Remember LORD, 
the unfailing faithfulness of thy Guardian Angels,
Who deigned through their vigilant and loving stewardship
to vouchsafe in the life of our souls,
the unfailing truth of Thy paternal love and solicitude
over our Everlasting safety.

We ask Thee Eternal Father
Thou bless us with a Remembrance of them -

Who stand invisibly to watch over our thoughts
and guard our memories against the spirit of evil;
who against the Devil and the desolation of the War
keep safe for us - the enabling reality of thy own Truth:

Our Angel Guardians, who keep for us a way of safe return
away from the Night - and the sin which hides in the darkness
unto Christ, our Light, and unto Thee, dear Father of our hearts,
unto Thy Sacraments, unto Penance, and the fruits of Repentance -
which is the fullness of each these Friendships - Thou hath ordained.

Which is Truth everlasting in the knowledge of the Father and the Son
on this day of their Eternal Memorial, O LORD, united in Thy Holy Spirit -
alleluia, alleluia, glory to one Most High God forever, alleluia - forever.

AMEN.
---<--@

Where is thy brother, Abel?

To a man with no sense of Remembrance, one hundred people murdered in war and one million people murdered in war makes no difference.

But to those who know of Sacred Remembrance - to save one life is to save all of Mankind.



The first time
Man ever saw in himself
the form of the Enemy was
when Cain slew his own brother, Abel.

This primordial sin of mortal division
that passing through the door of the heart of Cain
unleashed the adversarial spirit of the Enemy of all Nations
and upon our world, resulted in the first taking of a human life
marked the advent of War and the first loss of an innocent soul
as both violent conflict and murder were realized upon our world -
at the very same moment - for truly they are synonymous to each other.

Beloved Starshine -
the Soul of every single Man
when they are each endowed by God
makes fully human - and - fully complete
the seed of corporeal life that is fruit and blessing
of the consummation of the love of Woman and Man
wrought within the freedom of their Sacred Union in Marriage
at the very moment of its conception - to become a Living Soul -
a complete human being - united in body, soul, and spirit -

and as such, contains within it's being all the good and the promise 

that the LORD hath fully intended for that person to be and to become
in time, emerging upon the earth, a wonder and a work of completion
in the freedom of the Truth - for the greater purposes of God -

for Man is a creature of the becoming - a being invested in hope!

(Why do you think, Starshine, human parents plan ahead for their child?
God being Parent to His Children, also plan for their success - as is His right.)

So when God asked Cain, "where is thy brother, Abel?"
The LORD was not asking Cain about the whereabouts of his brother.
Indeed, God already fully knows where Abel went, for - in being with Him
the LORD asked of Cain where the life - the entire life - of his brother went
that he may come to realize the gravity of his sin - for all that Abel was - cried up
to the LORD from the ground and his blood wept for all the good that shall never be.

- selah -

A sapling felled
at the beginning its life will no longer yield it's fruits -
and yet these fruits shall still be required of us by the Master of Harvest
we shall then produce them by the improvements we make unto ourselves -
that - each of us - may hope to yield more for the Master of Harvest
but most of all, by the improvements we undertake to create in our communities -
that - all of us - may hope to yield more for the Master of Harvest
and by our Remembrance receive the blessings of His everlasting Peace
and by our God's faithfulness and mercy - succeed!
And that our joy may be full forever.

We wonder why the world is so troublesome and lacking in fruit...
How many trees have we lost since the beginning of our long march into Exile?

How many times
have the LORD asked our Nations
the same question he asked Cain at the advent of War?

And how did we respond?

- selah -

Every Nation of the Children of Mankind
are charged with a constant Remembrance of these things,
that we may together render faithful account of each human life
All in behalf of each other - all for the life of visible creation
with a Book of Memory, and a Burden of Justice to carry
and a Sword to guard - for each of thee - thy every generation well
and to charge them all - to remember always - from the very beginning
at the East Gate of faded Eden - the way of our return to an Eden rebuilt -
their constant Debt of Remembrance - to God and to each other -
that each is a keeper to another, citizens and human beings -
so that by each their labors, these thy generations may soon undertake
in behalf of each other - and - in peace with all other Nations
to make each their Soul of Country in spirit - ever brighter
by each their degrees of Love and Remembrance
and its every Ascent unto completion of All Country
in Ages together - ever more certain.
---<--@

Across the Land

We can not hold ground that we do not hold first in our hearts. 

Thank you, Army Boots. 

To all who through our most recent crisis in Mindanao gave to our Nation, their best, their bravest, and their finest to defend the life of the national community in Zamboanga City and preserve the hope of the dawning of better days in our Mindanao, salamat po. 

May God bless all those who saw us through the crisis - civilians, police, and armed forces personnel - citizens not unlike each of us, who honor us by the shining example of their citizenship, along with those who now live in our eternal remembrance. 

May the sacrifices that they made together never be in vain.

Salaam. Shalom. Peace.

---<--@

Personal Reflection -

20130920, Friday - I look again toward Zamboanga, contemplating whether I was too overzealous in believing the crisis to be over in that besieged City of our beloved Republic, and observe that - yes, it had already peaked. It's tide is turned.

Conflicts, especially armed conflict, when they are fought from within a nation is never a contest that is fought on ground, air, or sea, but in the spirit; their battles won and lost from inside the soul of the people.

We are not a nation at war with another. As such, we can not apply ourselves to the task of overcoming with military force, "the enemy" - in the conventional sense of the word.

To do so would only create and re-create the conditions that propagate the divisions that plague the soul of our nationhood and afflict our spirit like a lingering, festering, sickening malaise.

We can not use the arms of our own nation to annihilate itself - our nationhood would soon also act to afflict us with the pain of burdens (debt of remembrance) meant to pierce the darkness that hold us back from the memory of ourselves as ourselves.

We are a nation involved in a struggle to overthrow the bondage of a war within ourselves. We do not aim to overcome, nor can we, our own nationhood against each other - our aim must be to allow a space for it and establish an equilibrium whereby our spirit as a human people can compose and settle itself in our minds and in our hearts - that we may stir no more with the stirring of war - this is why a meaningful peace to all of us is important. 

Because relief to our Muslim brothers and sisters does not mean to feed them, clothe them, shelter them, and offer them opportunities in places far from their hearts.

Relief to our Muslim brothers and sisters means to obtain for them, and with their help, relief from hunger, the safety of law, protection from war in a place near to their hearts wherein their community can prosper and grow, thriving in peace alongside all the communities within our nation.

This is how we shall give them relief. We will help them establish themselves in community at peace within the peace of our Republic.

I think this is the aspiration behind the Bangsamoro - and this is why we must help them - because there is no them and us - only a "we". And to ignore this is to call down upon ourselves a dark and deepening madness of a night without a twilight.

But are we not the Land of the Morning?

Therefore, as regards to the particular situation we find ourselves now in Zamboanga -

The less strong the enemy will - only in this particular - the less strenuous should be our exertion to do battle with them in the field. They fight on our terms now. For this is the time, at the waning away of each of their greatest advantages in warfare, that we are able to expose the strategy that brought their cause into conflict with our military and the politics behind it, that needs unmasking, that it may revert once again into mere opinion and thus, be permanently undone.

Our mercy should fall only on those deceived by the art of their warfare - for indeed, they have fallen short of it's craft and it's intended truth. They fight for the benefit of fighting, while our soldiery defend against their violence. For they hate the love unto which we all must return to when the call to the greater building of the national community is issued once again, particularly in the City of Zamboanga, as it must, for all the days of war are numbered, but numberless are the ages of peace - and we do not stand as a nation to add to the life of the spirit of war but to hasten it's eventual extinction.

We should always leave an avenue of surrender - a way of return to the Nation - and break them by their bones by stripping their command structure bare who needs breaking - that their violence against the peace of our people cease - that they who with all their hostage taking, their murdering, their abusing, their will of death - reap the consequences of the freedom they embraced.

To a man with no sense of remembrance, one hundred people murdered in war and one million people murdered in war makes no difference.

But to those who know of sacred remembrance - to save one life, is to save all of mankind.
---

20130928 Saturday - At the conclusion of military operations in Zamboanga City -



Within that 20 day siege we lost more than 200 people - all of them human beings, all of them citizens of this Nation - 23 of whom are from the ranks of our soldiers and police with more than 100,000 - Muslim and Christian alike - displaced by the fighting with some Muslims reportedly prevented by the outbreak of hostilities from doing their Hajj.

This is not to mention the physical, emotional and psychological wounds of those civilians who were taken hostage agaisnt their by the rogue MNLF contingent along with the deep spiritual wounding that the whole community of Zamboanga must  now be suffering from.

The material cost of this episode may be something that experts can qualitatively surmise but of our deeper immaterial losses here, we can only maintain a vigilance, because while it's easy to tell when the blood stops bleeding, the guns stop firing, and the building stop burning, the end of tears are harder to tell - for there are tears that flow invisibly - shed from the soul long after the eyes have stopped weeping.

It will take the whole Nation to hope to contain all that hurt - a hurt that I am sure shall linger on - and linger on long after the event has quietly slipped away from the attention of the press, the politics, and the majority of the public. Therefore, their community shall require - for their longer term healing - the focus of pertinent national institutions and related civic and religious organizations concerned about the relief of human suffering and the quality of life of human community.

All Cities in our Republic share an equality of function and this is the most important equality that dictates the strength of the freedom they possess to continually realize, in the lives of their citizens, the hopes they are by this Republic our entrusted with - an equality of being - for their most certain endowment is their simply existing and to affirm and to continually recognize this equality is to strengthen - collectively - our sovereignty.

Zamboanga needs the help of her sister Cities in the Republic - here, at the conclusion of the fight - our military, police, firemen, emergency personnel and various other first responders showed - in exemplary fashion - how they honor our Nation by their citizenship through faithfulness and excellence, each in their respective calling to serve. What must now flow in - is the rest of us - who with willing hands and helping hearts shall deliver another decisive blow - this time against that spirit of division that has no place in our communities and help Zamboanga to eventually heal.

Farewell to Promise

Truly, your individual remembrances make you a human being and your national remembrances make you a citizen. Therefore, know ye in the end that all national remembrances are human remembrances; that every nation's hurt are always ultimately a hurt that arises from the human condition.

When you pass the line of your own remembrance - from past to present - and complete the necessary labor of your spirit... you should, in deepening your memory of all of these things, be carrying in your will of human citizenship - more love, more hope, and more faith in our common humanity and in the labor of our family of nations*... not less.

(*to build up the Inhabited Earth and fill our world with a myriad living lights)

Certainly you are going in the wrong direction (retrograding) if your remembrance causes you to forget all these things and instead, embrace the easy power of hatred (and become by evil inspired).

This is not remembrance but the corruption of it.

The way of remembrance returns us back to our nation's lineages of victory and is proof against the spirit of war - the way of return guarded by the Angel at the East Gate of Eden (Gen. 3:24).

Will those souls who - from all ages and from all our nations - have suffered death from the spirit of war and hatred in the past cry out to our God for more war and hatred?

There is no other kind of suffering but the human kind and we do not remember to forget.

The past will not penalize us for not confronting it, the future will.
---<--@

September is peace month... may we deepen in the spirit of our peace!

Starshine, peace is not the mere absence of war 

just as Cherubs are not those fluffy, little, baby angels 

sitting dreamily on lazy, white clouds... 

For peace is a mighty presence - 

'tis in all that is worth keeping and defending 

born of every love worth living and dying for... 

'tis the presence of a spirit that is unafraid

to force to bless, transform, and fulfill
as truth to overcome the world -
in spite of the presence war.

Australia is a laid back Country

Australia is a laid back Country, it is oft said... but what does this mean?



Every undertaking of Country
counts it's days according to it's own rhythm,
giving them form and measure according to its own spirit...
and those who belong to her nationhood
come to feel this passage in their moments intimately,
more and more so by the count of their years.

I would not compare Australia to other Countries...
I have learned to love her as she is... our Australia Fair
(And to judge none - for no nation of ours is without sin
and as such, no undertaking of Country is without salvation)
And though I know a bit of her, having spent some of my time

embraced by her - and in her spirit, soaking in the life, 

diversity and remembrance of her varied peoples, 

I can not truthfully say I have become blessed enough 

to fully appreciate the depth of her spirit as a nation... 

for Australia is not only fair, she too is ancient -

the roots of her community, quite vast and quite deep.

BUT this is do know -
and all my family and friends over there may agree:
Australia is a laid back nation, fair dinkum!

And when I say this,
I mean she is a land built with human communities
devoted to much happier, and much deeper human pursuits...
a nation inherently aware of a calling deep within herself,
reaching out together towards horizons a little bit above
that of the mere material... and the obviously temporal
for hers is that spirit that values things that are brighter
and more excellent than just the coin... and the clock
(to the point that civic generosity is sometimes exploited).

So there seems to ALWAYS be time in Australia
(at first, this was admittedly a source of boredom for me)
most especially, moments set aside and devoted
to the quest of other necessary things besides money...
(her shops close uncomfortably early, specially on weekends).

And this, according to yours truly, is why she is perceived
by her other kindred nations to be easy and laid back in her nature -
because it is part and parcel of her inherent wealth and wisdom
and so Australia keeps her time and treasures accordingly -
time for family, time for friends, time for mateships enough to mature
time for nature, time for fun and sports, time for learning a craft or a cure,
time for worship, time for politics, time for sacred remembrances to endure
time in abundance, time welling up from the dreamtime - plenitude!
Time enough for the benefit and enrichment of all Australians.
---<--@


Fairness and Mateship

ASEAN is Essential

If we, as individual nations,
are really serious about our being one
in the particular spirit of our region...
Then it's time to start thinking and loving
ourselves like one region... like one ASEAN.

Citizen,
incline thy better thoughts
towards our ASEAN at least once a week!

Start now
to enlarge thy hearts (and be generous!)
to embrace all our brothers and sisters in the region,
finding ever deeper ways to love us all...

ASEAN is essential.
---<--@

Remembrance 
that does not fill thy spirit with love 
to put an end to all thy hatreds 
and overcome all thy wars 
is but thy ignorance of it.

Salutation #182

None of the Seraphs have joined with Satan in his War
and the LORD has, prior to the time of the Children
(which are these latter-day times, beloved of God),
utterly destroyed all evil and fallen Principalities
in the Great Deluge for our good behalf.

So we are
in our every belonging preserved
by Love and Remembrance...

(Love and Remembrance)

Love and Remembrance
when each their truths are realized -
breaks upon thy heart, darlingest Starshine,
clear as the dawn and draw thy spirit decisively
in great ascending motions - leading thee steadfastly
forth and away from the midnight darkness...

For
Love and Remembrance
once realized by thy seeking soul - as truth in the heart
have no parallel midnight - the advent of each of their realities
once it has risen in the horizon of thy mind - separate themselves cleanly
as light is from darkness and leave no trace of shadow nor confusion
to the being and thought of any Man as to which Twilight path
leads to the Morning.

Glory to God therefore, all ye Nations,
sing to the LORD a song of love and thanksgiving;
a hymn of adoration from thy hearts, O Children of Mankind
for the wonder our God has done for us!
---<--@

Lucifer with all his wit,
was not able to convince and commit,
a single Seraph to his fight
for who could make love itself choose
to burn for anything else
but the one Beloved.

Thus, save for his lies,
none can love the Devil true...

But
when God utters
a Word of the Truth,
all hearts upon all the earth
and across all of heaven above
come aflame with Love.
---<--@


To not be afraid, love. 
To not be ashamed, remember.

The Hero of Tirad Pass

Remember,
O noble Filipino soul -
you gallant keepers of the peace,
the virtues that keep thee steadfast
in the spirit of the defense.

Love of God,
love of Country,
love of Sacred Life
- even to the point of giving it -
in the midst of the nation in thy selves
and the assembly of the nations before God
- freely and with joy -
with courage and honor intact
for that same cause.

Remember our own
General Gregorio del Pilar,
the Hero of Tirad Pass!
---<--@

Salutation #181

Of the nations of old, those ancient, fallen and evil Principalities of this world, utterly corrupted in their light, inhuman and incapable of knowing truth, forever drowned by the LORD in the Great Deluge, it may be said, all have perished and inhabit no more the times of the Children.

Yet even as God extinguished these fallen nations of old, and did inaugurate during the time of the Patriarch Noah and his sons, His Covenant with us, allowing for the emergence of the Nations of the Children, their malice still to us persists, their light still lingers on as shadow in this world, and their works of darkness, in the Void of the Desolation of the Angels, remain to haunt with death and calamity those who are not joined with their Sacred Remembrances.

(Chosenhood)

Chosenhood is emergence.

All nations are chosen in this way:
to be tutored in war, tested through peace
and proven by maturation in time.

For we are, so we must -
by our fruits we are known!

Made of golden promises
and paved with good intentions
is the way of war
but the fruits of war
is just as well-known -
(to the memory of the nations
and to the remembrance of man)
it is deception, discord, division,
degeneration, disintegration, death
and desolation.

But the craft of all nations is peace!

All nations that will prevail as one
(the Nations of the Children of Mankind)
were chosen and commissioned
by the LORD - all in the same act -
right at the Eastern Gate,
(the way of our remembrance)
at the beginning of exile time,
at the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden -
each one to emerge in time
according to the purpose of God
all, despite the appearance of darkness,
for the greatest good of all creation
for the LORD wants all
to experience His Salvation.

And Israel, ever beloved,
among the Nations of the Children
is first among equals.
---<--@