#02 On Peace

Distance is oppressive only to those whose hearts refuse to fill with an understanding that is more that just conventional understanding, the empty gap that exists between two hopes. For we are separated only by our selves, the empty gap being the empty self, for hope is the glue that bind human communities together.

Where we become aware of the sacred spaces within time, we are no longer empty. We will have discovered what is common in human hope and this should fills us with a sense of peace. Peace that in it's turn reminds us of who we should be, for we are common bridges of common hope, peacemakers, a people of promise, children of the peace and therefore, children of the light.
---<--@

Sequence #2 of the Pax Pilipinas Series

"WHY PAX PILIPINAS?" and what does one exactly mean by this? First of all, this is not in any way, shape or form even remotely connected to the reasonably more popular term, "Pax Romana". "Pax Romana" is meant to say Rome itself and the civilizing effect of Rome on her empire of conquest.

This is not to say that "Pax Pilipinas" is superior in any way, shape or form from "Pax Romana" and realize that this line of thinking is part and parcel of the old system of war that drew it's meaning and judgment from inadequate halves pitted unwittingly against each other; male vs. female, peace vs. war, us vs. them, gang vs. gang, whites vs. blacks, blacks vs. whites, east vs. west, north vs. south, me vs. the world, this group vs. that group, this clique vs. that clique, this company vs. that company, this religion vs. that religion, this civilization vs. that civilization, etc - the list is endless. Simply put, it is a system that takes the most innocent of things and not understanding it's true meaning frames it in terms of oppositions and in this way makes it completely meaningless to everything else but the conflicts of differences that define very weakly it's outline but never it's substance. This line of thinking along with many other subtle inconsistencies that pollute our living waters of our humanity with the filth of war have defied human convention for ages. All of this gives an exact form to the veritable unseen darkness that we now experience today as the prevalent climate of our hearts and of our world. It is why many are not able to see past the self let alone look deeply into the heart of another. This darkness have given birth to genocide, it has given birth to the prevalence of pornography and violence and this same darkness have also given birth to and directly contribute to the prevailing culture of death, a novel fashion of the empty vanity of the world so relentlessly contemptuous to life as a whole.

Those who have read my previous works must now be quick to realize where I am going with this without any need to be more specific for I am of the unwavering conviction that war has brought our world into an untenable state in the present form. To press on without regard as to where we are headed is no longer permissible and both the seasons of our current times as well as the seasons of the celestial firmament within the soul will attest to the relevant reality of the things we must now resolve in our hearts to adequately address. Lest we forget. Lest we forget.

"Pax Pilipinas" is built on a paradigm of peace. Therefore, when we shall say, "Pax Pilipinas", we will explicitly mean this paradigm of peace particularly and uniquely applied to the Philippines as a whole both to our nation as well as to our Republic citizen-state. It is not meant to be relative to anything nor is it meant to exist in opposition to something, it is what it is, it's reality is a whole that encapsulates everything that is true about itself. It is a whole truth which means that it is true everywhere on earth and binding for all seasons of the celestial cycle that began from creation itself and will end in significance only at the culmination of the purpose of creation itself at the Last Day. Of course, war as a whole may also be adequately defined in the same sense that we define peace as a whole. The only difference is what vision of the future we shall each resolve to apply into our hearts today and from our hearts today out into the doors of our world of tomorrow.

Let us not think in the way of the world, for the world is fickle and certain only to change, it delights in novelty and forgets it's ancient alliances, it pursues only the vanity of fleeting shadows, a figment of the glory that was and of the things which will never be. The children of this world follow the way of this world and are wise with worldly wisdom, they seem to succeed where we constantly fail. We are not these children.

Of the passing system of war, let us be rid of it completely. War exacts a terrible toll on our humanity, a price that is always more than the visible tragedies endured by our nations as well as each individual human being, it is a price we can no longer afford to pay. War has made us and our common humanity as helots to itself, it has systematically diminished our human capacity to function amidst the order of wholes that shape and sustain the enabling government of Divine Providence of which we are an intrinsic part. For war thrives where these wholes are broken, where any truth is relative, for war itself is a whole and thus, demand an absolute form of allegiance, an allegiance that only Almighty God has the right to claim but never does because this safeguards our freedom to become truly happy.

Many nations and many lives are in utter disarray, the tragedies of the past lay heavily on our present, our world is now at the brink of natural calamity and yet must we still allow conflict to dictate how we shall live among our peers, of how we shall govern the nations, of how we shall pursue the paths of the infinite, of how we shall serve out what little time that we have received with honor intact? War has defiled the original order of the nations, it is not native to our lands and to our ways, for war is both foreign and new to our native earth and sky. No human being can ever conceive what immense evils war has conceived for our humanity. We must no longer allow war to dictate the course of our nations as well as the destiny of our individual lives. So let the children of war stir for war. Their time is short and belong neither here nor there, neither heaven nor humanity will tolerate them, they are indeed natives only to hellfire. So let the children of war stir for war. We shall come to a memory of the peace.

Things wax more beautiful when placed in the right context but if we want them to be meaningful to us as well, we must use them in the way they are originally intended from our very creation. All things created are meant to serve sacred life and sacred life is meant to serve the Divine will as instruments towards greater purposes in a sweeping motion of one full cycle of the celestial season from creation to the culmination of the purpose of creation.

So it is the same with peace as our paradigm. Peace is a native in the order of creation and there is nothing new about it. All things that benefit the genuine good of nations as well as individual human beings are never novel things. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun for there is nothing lacking in creation. Thus, peace moves with the same motions to serve, walks along the same way of virtue and speaks in the original language of the truth, of winged words that are swift and unambiguous in meaning.

Verily, no peace can ever be meaningful without service which is why we shall establish a common system of common needs that require our common alms. This is a system of common needs that constitute an obligatory form of giving conducted at the national level with other nations when possible and set apart from the particular requirements of honorable religion.

Common need is hunger, thirst, clothing, shelter, personal security, basic literacy, just society, authentic human freedom, and meaningful existence. Where these are still prevalent in our own nations, it shall be by their ascending order both our sacred duty as well as our civic responsibility to meet these common needs with common alms. Where we have sanctified the hopes of our nations and alleviated the conditions of the people nearest to us as our family, friends and countrymen, we shall then be ready to serve with both our will and our wherewithal entire nations beginning with the nations in our immediate vicinity and ascending to the order of wholes to the region, to the continent and to our one planet entire. It is said that to save one life is to save humanity entire. Also true is that in helping others, we help save ourselves. For it is only in the giving that we become free.

And so we return to the soldier in my last work whose heart is held captive by the contradictions of conflict and who asks the question why life seem so inimical to itself, why life seem so pointless, the answer is that it is not. Life upholds life just as eagerly and as tenderly as a mother holds her young, it is war itself that is inimical to life. It may only seem sometimes that life is pointless for our world is not perfect but it is war itself that is truly pointless and not because our world is not perfect but because this imperfect world is all that we have between now and the shores of forever.

Life is a journey, war is a destination, peace is a path that lead away from war and the midnight darkness of our present world towards the dawn, towards the twilight of the new, towards those distant daybreak horizons and the brave new morning from on high.

From this paradigm of peace we shall reconstitute the original culture of life.

---<--@ for General Gregorio del Pilar, let us draw the final line of our Country's defense in our hearts with you...

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

Blessed Pedro Calungsod, pray for us

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.

Next: Sequence #03: A Prelude to the New