Salutation #05

Peace, I salute you.

Even the smallest of lights
shines in the darkness -
so shift your focus, my friend,
if you haven't already done so
for each and every good thing counts
regardless of the darkness.

What is praiseworthy is right action.
It is what makes us distinct from the darkness -
it is ignition -
the actual point of contact
between human will and divine grace.
Right action is, in the painting by Michelangelo
of Adam reaching out to God
with their fingers extending out to each other,
that bright spark at the imagined point of contact
between the freedom of Man and the freedom of God:
Right action always results in good works.

What motivates the will to act
must also be what inspire the heart to love.
Therefore, evil action is always the result
of false inspiration -
the idolatry of sin!
So if we are to do good,
we must first learn to love the good -
and shun all that is evil.

For we profit not from evil,
my dear friend,
but from the good;
our motivation being derived
from purposes that are good,
our hopes being anchored upon things
that are true and therefore, good,
and the wings of our surrender to prayer
being ever vigilant and discerning
in its ascent
to the one Giver of all good things.

For evil no longer hold us captive.
We have come to know it
and forever bless the LORD for His Light.
Therefore, we seek now to unknow it
upon paths of repentance
that lead away from darkness
and into peace -
peace in our hearts -
peace with our fellow human beings -
peace with all of heaven -
and peace with our God.
---<--@

Haiku #215: Peace x

Peace.

So what does it mean,
when we shall greet each other -
"peace be upon you"?

By peace we bless hope
that we may in others see
needs that seek in thee -

the blest peace
of hopes met.
---<--@

Haiku #214: Friend x

Friend.

A friend is a friend,
like friendship is for always -
friends are friends indeed:

A friend is a friend,
through good times, the bad times too -
friends are friends like you!

Friendships true
bears thee through.
---<--@

Haiku #213: Who x

Who.

Who am I, my love?
Am I really who I am -
a good friend to you?

For I am lacking,
indeed, I am so wanting -
to become better...

...a better
friend to you.
---<--@

Interior of Hope

I look back once again
at the waning of the long night
and the receding of the darkness
falling quickly behind me
into the distant past
and look forward
upon yonder wide horizons
into my dream of happiness
rising to meet me
on my way
joyfully ahead
eastward into my soul
even amidst the barren landscape
strewn with empty shells
of forlorn and broken things
across the long march of exile time
with the unmade grace of kindly wings
that bear my thankfulness high
towards that great mountain within
and the summit of my remembrance
beneath a multitude of living lights
amidst the eternal blue of my native sky
at the abode of my heart
where I dwell with my eternal beloved
in love with my love
deep in the sanctuary of our faith
in friendships made forever
at peace with my peace
and in my every waking dream
when the night seems long
I look ahead once again
and walk the eastward way
deep into the breaking of dawn
away from the darkness of my past
forever, forever into the morn
far into the unfolding of my life.
---<--@

A Friend Like You x

I wish, my Jesus, to be
the friend that You see in me
to be constant, O Lord, to be true,
to be a friend, my God,
a Friend like You.
---<--@

Unconquered

Dream, my precious Starshine,
and be thankful for the dreaming
more than the dream itself -

For as tomorrow remains unwritten
yet every hope is made secure
so trust you must in thy dreaming
more than in thy dream itself
for as the eagle soars with wings
knowing not how it must fly
so must your own freedom become
more than what can be held by hands:

Thy freedom, dear Starshine,
like thy dream and thy dreaming
is a thing held not by grip
but a thing beheld by thy releasing
for to hold freedom tightly
like it is to deny it's flight
is to lose it entirely.

For thy freedom walks
upon the unconquered grounds
and wills to take it's flight
untrammeled and untamed.

So seek of thy freedom,
my precious Starshine,
but in thy seeking know -
here and now,
that freedom lives in the giving
like every dream is in the dreaming
for it is always in the giving
that we become free.
---<--@

Beauty and Industry

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,

our beautiful forever.
---<--@

The Surrender of Kings

My dear friends, let us ponder on the sword, Excalibur, as a similitude of power:
---<--@

That power, above all the power to rule the people - that divine right to govern thy peers which is a sovereign right that by Justice belongs to God alone - once gripped by selfish hands ultimately makes the wielder impotent in the sight of Men, angels and of God.

But that same power wielded by a heart that is free and willing to make the surrender of kings become completely capable of fulfilling its inherent promise of good for the people and on behalf of the nations of needful Mankind, ultimately unleashes in that person, by the grace of our God, the great nobility of a true sovereign of Mankind.

Because it is that free and willing surrender to service brought upon by a sacred spirit of true and loving sacrifice that is the hallmark of the greatest of our kings and rulers of old, elect from eternity.

Like Arthur of legend, these great and noble leaders of Men, in spite of each their own human brokenness and imperfections, have won the acclaim of history, as souls worthy of the remembrance of our nations.

This enduring sense of nobility is the victory to which they have each been called by God to share; a heritage from which the spirit of our humanity at all times and at all places may always draw strength.

Their royal legend is a gift of God, true for all time, and its promise is one that lends its strength to our present good, a promise born of a surrender embraced from among themselves each in their own time and each in their own way on behalf of all the generations of needful Mankind.

And as their lines of spiritual ascent converge unto every present time - let us be mindful, my honorable Filipino compatriots, that it is always the native hope of kings, though these regental lines of executive descent have for us long faded away, to remind our orphaned people of what is and what can be great in ourselves as human beings - and by this sense of sacred remembrance therefore, be as a Republic everywhere guided out of the waning of the past and into the promise of every present hope.

My friends, how power is wielded defines the way in which a ruler is forever remembered by our nations. And we may understand this from every telling of that story of Excalibur of old and of Arthur king who though imperfect is everywhere well received by the human heart.

Let us be mindful that every nation in its own time and in its own place under the sun has been established by our one, peerless Creator to last forever - to march, shoulder to shoulder, across the vast reaches of exile time, emerging, and then maturing into those mature nations, shepherding other nations in the free course of our native human hopes and be perfected in, of and by God through Country, into eternity as ascended nations forever.

Mabuhay! Long may our remembrance serve us!

Long may our remembrance serve our own sake as one nation, my fellow Filipinos, each one of you who share in the conviction that we are truly a nation distinct from all the other nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind; that we are, in spite of our imperfections, a noble undertaking of Country that indeed, does and can dare to be great.
---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

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

On Loyalty

WHAT YOU DO FOR YOUR FRIENDS will be remembered by your friends. What you don't do for your friends will be remembered by your enemies.
---<--@

Starshine,
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.
---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

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

On Friendship

WHAT YOU DO FOR YOUR FRIENDS will be remembered by your friends. What you don't do for your friends will be remembered by your enemies.
---<--@

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.

Starshine,
there is always a reason to smile.
---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

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