Sunday, August 10, 2008

What War did to my Annelies Marie

"WHOEVER saves one life, saves the world entire."
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THIS JEWISH SAYING (the catch phrase of the movie, "Schindler's List") encapsulates how my darlingest Annelies Marie, by her life and times, her Diary and her eternal friendship with me has managed to single-handedly teach me everything I need to know about war's ugly head.

Look at this picture (photo, with thanks, is entitled "Anne Frank" by Samir Ljuma) and pay attention to your heart. Listen to what your natural human reason is telling you. Does your heart rest easy in your silence or is there a disturbing sense of noise that makes your soul restless? Does your natural human reason completely agree with you in your own mind that this is our natural state as human beings?

Personally speaking, it bothers me a very, very great deal to think that my darlingest Annelies Marie or some other person, a human being - it doesn't matter who, would actually be reduced to this, profaned by unspeakable inhumanities to such a great degree that they become hollowed out from within. Yet I know it happens in our world today as often as I blink my eyes the same during my darlingest Annelies Marie's life and times here on our world down below. In this sense, my precious companion, I am truly grateful to our LORD that my own limitations and my own lack somehow shield me from all of this pain. But it is not also beyond me to imagine what sort of grief this kind of dishonor brings to the everliving LORD of all the living who never was a God of the dead but have always been from eternity, a God of life.

You see, we are nameless not in the eyes of our LORD, we are nameless because war is blind to our beauty - the beauty of our common humanity that is derived from the image and likeness of our Creator imprinted on each our own souls. This is essentially what I mean when I say that we are beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself. Our LORD has a filial concern for our souls and therefore, each of us are always present in God's eternal remembrance. If only we can remember this, for we are indeed forgetful creatures, the world would be a much more happier place.

The suffering inflicted by war will not discriminate like our God discriminates. God knows our proper names. How else could our LORD have called our souls from the nothingness without our proper names? What makes us unique in our identity as human persons is this proper name that is known only to our one Creator alone. Now, our most beneficent LORD affords all of us an equal share of Himself according to our own participation with His divine grace, in this way, our LORD is not a respecter of persons. For in terms of the common pursuit of life's last end, we are each made equal in the sense of beginnings, yet not in the sense of our life's fulfillment for we are each given the measure that we give out and therefore, all of us are made content, all are of us are made happy, from the least to the greatest, happiness is everywhere equally fulfilled in us. This is called, an identity of participation. This identity defines the hierarchical order of our Saints in the Church Triumphant, all of whom - from least to our Lady who is the greatest, are equally happy and totally immersed in the Beatific Vision of God. From this is built the equal order of our one Solidarity. Let us bear into mind that there is more to be said about equal order and identity of participation however, we must try not to fly off into a tangent and keep to the subject matter at hand lest we become confused. We will reserve that particular topic in a future post.

Hence, our God loves us exactly because we are human beings; He loves us for our being human. For our God loves us not because we are in any way useful to Him. Our God recognizes each of us intimately knowing each of us even more than we know ourselves and His immovable divine will is to uphold our human dignity of which He is the primary Source. We labor to accomplish this aspect of the divine will by our acts of mercy as well as by our responding with common alms to our system of common needs that restore in charity and justice the intrinsic human dignity of human beings.

Indeed, our LORD loves us just because we are human beings; He loves us for our being human. This Love that created us for Itself is a pre-existent good in relation to our particular, temporal experience of reality. But in absolute reality, this Love is an eternal Love; a Love that knows of no beginning nor One that recognizes any end to It's Being.

It is then up to our free will to allow or to disallow this same Love, this same LORD to finish what is unfinished in us, His veritable masterpiece that is intended in time's flow to continually crown with our Creator's glory, all of visible creation specifically our one home planet at the fringes of the known universe but right smack at the center of God's plan of absolute liberation of the visible universe entire.

Truly, truly, God loves us for always just for being our true selves. From this is built the principles of servant leadership - modeled by our Savior particularly in the act of washing the feet of His Apostles - that is expected of the leadership of our one Solidarity. The foundation principle of servant leadership is the conviction that service and one that is given with the right motive of Christian charity is the only true form of relationship, meritorious in the eyes of God, angels and men, between all human beings, past, present, future and eternal. This shall also be reserved as a topic in a future post.

In contrast to this, war (and those reprobate angels and men who follow in their hearts freely and willfully the descendant will of war) favors the strong and the useful and discards the rest. War does not see us by our proper names nor does war perceive any beauty in our humanity. But none of us remain strong and beautiful forever who are an unfinished work of God here on this world down below. Therefore, those who follow war's will and descend with the divisive gravity of war follow the one path that shall ultimately lead to their eternal regret. And I do not have to expound on this very much now, because by this time, those who are kindred to my soul and have the right kind of heart that share in the same charism with me will no longer waste any time in agreeing with me on this point that appeals to both our reason as well as our faith.

Now, what war does to one person, war does the same to the rest of us. This is why whoever sees the beauty in one person and sees what is worth seeing in our common humanity the same way my darlingest Annelies Miyang Marie taught me what is beautiful in her, acquire also an equal appreciation of the one whole peace. Beauty is a first principle truth, an aspect of God which applies to all the things that possess in them the signature of our one common Creator, we only have to know where to look to see what this whole visible universe is proclaiming very loudly in the silence - that God is and that is all. Beauty is most especially present in us human beings and if you fail to see this then there is definitely something wrong with you.

Oscar Schindler in the last part of the movie became obsessed with how less he has managed to save because he has come to an utter realization of the fact that we are all beautiful. And it matters not who you are, or what you look like, what truly matters is God loves you as you and so you must be loved as yourself simply because you are a human being created for Beauty the same with our common humanity and that is all.

When we know what is worth seeing in a person, we will utterly realize what is truly worth saving in our common humanity, for we will have discovered what is really worth loving in a person and not with our own shabby love, mind you - for what is our love but a false love of self - but with God's own limitless love - for true self and others in God for God, and when our hearts are recreated to be like this, my precious friend, God will open up the eyes of our souls, warming us up to the substance of the Jewish saying, "whoever saves one life, saves the world entire." Because, my precious companion on the Way, we WILL want to save the world entire because we will have realized life's beauty and life's almost infinite potential. Because contained within the promise of each human life, in spite of our littleness, vulnerability and lack, is the veritable salvation of our one human race entire.

This desire of the will when animated by the right kind of love is meritorious in the eyes of God because it is congruent to the Divine Will that desire that all may be saved.

Do you see how important my darlingest Miyang is to me? Can you now understand how I can not help but love her forever as she loves me? And so like one of our many favorite songs go, I'll become what she became to me (the last line of "Black Balloon" by the Goo Goo Dolls).

My precious friend, our darlingest Anne Frank could also teach you that same lesson if you prayerfully read her Diary and meditate on it; absorb it in your soul as if you were actually there with her. Then, learn to look beyond the pages into the limitless possibilities that may only be opened up to you once you learn to love people for their being people with a love that is not yours to keep but with a love that is made yours to give; a love that everyday leads us back to the eternal reality of Itself forever longing for Itself.

Finally, to learn to look beyond the gifts to the Giver Itself completes our foretaste of our promised return to a realm of an everlasting happiness with God.

Peace be with you and Godspeed.

May we always remain in God's grace.

Sancta Sanctis!

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

"I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains."

"No one has ever become poor by giving. "

"We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same. "

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

Annelies Marie Frank (June 12, 1929 - March 1945)
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How true!Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
a fellow catholic from Denmark

Maximilian Mary said...

thank you for your comment and may God bless you with His abundant peace which is life.