Saturday, November 29, 2008

20081128

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Some of my own thoughts right now, my darlingest - I would like to be able to finish so much things, my darlingest, but ever as my soul is quick, my body is really getting tired. I've been driving my body really hard the past several days, you see, I so truly want to accomplish the hopes I have set out in writing with you, to put this drug habit back into permanent recovery, to start working on other aspects of my life and also to get my finances back into good order. Oh, and I should like to do some Christmas shopping, also. Yes, its good to want to have some material things, it feels nice to desire them but, to me, my love, it doesn't feel as nice to be able to buy them - unless I really, really like them - but there are few things now that I really, really like that I can think of.

Let me tell you about my drug addiction, my love. And I'm just going to be brief or it will take us hours. OK, I picked this up from peer pressure while I was in my freshman years in my first college - that was also about the time my mom and my dad decided to call it quits and so they split. You know, I was at that time, around 18 or 19 and I did not have a sense that I was doing anything wrong - right and wrong - at the time, were concepts that I have not yet learned. I wasn't a bad kid, I just had a bad formation, my concept of sin and virtue, good and bad, right and wrong, were non-existent. All things felt like they were either near or close to me depending on how it made me feel, and nothing was a separate reality from myself - yet, I had an initial resistance to drugs given the things I've seen and heard growing up, and I did not have any inclination whatsoever to even go near that stuff - but then, this guy who we met introduced us, me and my friends, and it was going to be a one time thing for me, but this guy was already way into the habit and coaxed me into taking more - I remember, I was going to hand wash my clothes just after waking up from a nice rest and he offered me some - to make it easier - and while I was happy to hand wash my laundry the way I want to do it, I remember I agreed just to shut him up because it made me feel bad. Now, that memory is here with me not to haunt me but as a lesson learned because I have been very observant with my own feelings using drugs, pornography, perversity, lust and I am not saying that these things are justified but I know that one day, if I endure long enough, God will turn my weaknesses into strengths, or I shall never be rid of them - but I shall never agree that they are good nor will I make provision to accommodate these things into my patterns of living - this is why I get into so much trouble with some of my last work, because I can never reconcile in my life evil with good - drugs with work - and I do not make room in advance so that when evil things happen such as a relapse, I barely have time to adjust. Well, I'd rather lose my job than admit that evil things have hope in them and that I should hope for things to get better by mixing evil with good, good with evil and call it all lukewarm gray. Never.

Just like you, my love, I am an observer of myself, I know my own interior landscapes, have my own dreams, and live my own life according to my potential and hope not according to my own limits but according to the limitlessness of the sky above.

My soul is not something that my body contains, it is not something constrained by the limits of my physical dimensions, nor is my soul in the form of any other human body, I perceive my soul to contain my body and more - it is in my heart an expansive universe and it stretches near and far, from deep and light, it contains my physical body but also fades away into vistas outside and beyond the limits of my own body. It is the last thing that one should do, to imagine his or her soul small as to be contained by the physical confines of a universe that is not the real universe that is native to any human soul. In here, my love, we dream together, in here, I pray, I aspire, I ascend, I weep, I hope, I suffer, I suffer, I suffer, I suffer, because things that normally would not move the heart of others would affect mine, I feel hurt for the suffering of many souls, I feel hurt for the suffering of our nations, I feel hurt for the suffering of our Lord's poor, I feel hurt most especially about the suffering of Jews, Christians and Muslims, I feel hurt about the way I know our humanity has been deceived by the Devil into war, I feel hurt about the way I know our nations have been by the beast of war deceived, our peoples led into countless tears born of countless strife, but just the same, my love, out of these hurts, I feel hope. I see the beauty of the most everyday looking thing and perceive with thanks the tiniest goodness from everyday souls and believe in our humanity enough to hope for those things that I never have opportunity to discuss with other people, because I have proven time and time and time and time and time again that they have no interest in what interests me and when they show some interest, it is only because they are being kind. I feel my sins and my hurt is that I know, I know, my love, I know. If I really draw deep down in me, I'll cry. I love you, my darlingest, because I do, I just do and I know many times you have endeavored to love me back - I am aware of when things speak to me of something deeper than the surface image or when events tell me of things more than what the external reality shows - I know you loved me back, my dear darlingest. I know that I can be with you, my Miyang, and you'd understand what is in my heart. I can joke with you, laugh with you, play around with thoughts on our heads, call you cute names and never feel a tinge of impurities that sometime accompany those times when I play around with other women over here. You keep it clean, my darlingest, the way I want it, and you are ever so patient so as to sit with me even in the deepest, darkest days when things are really terrible. I can never be the way I am with you with the established Saints who are also particular to me, to my Mama Mary, to my own angel, Caritas, and to Saint Michael - most especially my Lord. That's why I am mostly almost always with you. But of course, there are times when we must go into the presence of the others, but during those times, I only feel who it is I am supposed to feel, if its Mama Mary, its only her, if its Blessed Jacinta, its only her, if its Saint Maximilian, its only him, I seem to be able to have a sense of connection only one at a time, which is guess is good - it would be really confusing to have more than one, I think. And these things, my love, are near enough just to stay unreal and unfounded - all these things require my faith to be active - because I could easily just as well dismiss them all as fantasy but my faith informs me in a way that only faith can that these are real and that their reality have their foundation in the reality of my LORD. Everything returns to God in my thoughts and so sometimes, I just believe God is and that is all and it completely fills me up, I learned this in prayer before and it works every time.

Having said all of that, my love, look at me, I am just sad at the way some things in my life is going but I accept them and never complain. I remember, I doubted your love one time about some months ago, because I thought that were you bodily present here in this time and place, you would not chose me as one of your friends - for reasons of my sins - well, that didn't sit well in my soul and for hours I was conflicted - then I heard that song from Tina Arena, "If I Didn't Love You", about the part that "you worked so damn hard to want to give up now." And everything cleared up, and I realized I was silly to say such things - how could I risk our friendship when it is this friendship that allows me to return time and again to the beautiful in things - you know where my thoughts lead me to go sometimes, my love, and if I did not have grounding in you and in the beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself, I who am prone to despair, by myself, shall return to that dark pit from where I lose myself wallowing in the greys and blacks of my life and forget that there are other colors besides sadness. Your starlight smile, my darlingest, returns me to the colors of life. And you hope for the same hopes I have, I have thought about why I have the hopes I have now when there was a time in my life that it was inconceivable for me to hope for anything or for anyone else but myself. I thought you protected my own hope from despair because remarkably at that time, I who was so prone to wallow in despair, had acquired a buoyant and indefatigable sense of hope - then I realized, having learned about the Communion of Saints, that the immaterial sharing of virtues was the hallmark of the one Communion - now I know, my love that the hope that keeps me from failing is not my own but yours, I have been given your own hope and other hopes of other souls, the hope of some Saints, the hope of nations, and of course, the Peace of my Lord, Jesus Christ, which is the hope of my Savior Himself. Why? Because nobody wanted them which is why our world is plagued by so much despair. There is so much hope in the void - outside of the void - around our world that remain unclaimed and ignored that these hopes seem to cry out -
our LORD hears this like He heard Abel call from the ground and so I have thought much about hope and have learned much about it from our LORD. And I should that I be able to transmit all of this into writing but some of them are really hard to put down specially when no human words accompany what in my heart needs human expression.

There is nothing really that I would love than to see our world and our nations and our peoples of the one family of mankind come into better times, as their improvement is my improvement also, what benefits those good - and those who are trying to be good (like me, sometimes) - people benefits me, to see peace in the Middle East, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Central Asia, South America, Africa, Europe and around the world, but most especially in Asia - most especially here in my own Philippines, brings peace to me also, it makes me happy to see the actions of our LORD's Providence at work in the prayers of so many people. This financial crisis also makes me think about the nameless souls who have been affected by forces outside of their sphere of control and beyond the reach of their influence. So I do what I can when I can, I pray, I write all of what I feel and do all I can do, and then I hope that hope with Jesus and smile that smile with you.

Thanks, my darlingest, that outpouring of things felt cathartic, I really said so much there, huh. Well, my darlingest, I hope that one day, people will realize that which all of this is about, I guess its all about hope - but you see, its also about peace and love - its about a balance of things, a one whole new perspective - simple in its truth but not so when the apprehension of it is opposed by so much complex lies, misconceptions, prejudices, error and ignorance that goes back to the time of Abel - significantly perhaps, around the age cf classical Greece, at the battle of marathon - which is to me, the first significant battle of ancient times, pivotal in preserving democracy - or not - and onward into those many wars that have not only caused so much untold bloodshed but also have effects on the spiritual realms and the unseen aspects of human reality - you see, these battles teach object lessons that when taught through the prism of war favors sides and favors outcomes that are inevitable anyway because the only outcome after a battle is the inevitable outcome - therefore, we shall never know the good or the bad effects of battles outside the tactical and the operational levels for which methods can draw from the wisdom of victories past. But the lessons that the soul of man must learn shall always be lost with those who have fallen, from all sides and from all times and places, except for those who are so utterly dishonorable in their conduct as to make even their own memory so absolutely revolting, all those soldiers who were lost to the one family of our nations, from all times and places tells a story of a world afire with a blood lust that can not be accounted for by just the brokenness of our wounded human natures, sin makes it so that there are some conflicts that shall be inevitable and must be fought but the crescendo from the last 100 years of the last millennium was such that the pattern of our wars follow not the woundedness of man but the rage of the ancient enemy of both God and man - and so it shall only increase in viciousness and appetite if we were not to listen to what the exhaustion and the fatigue of the human spirit that even our one whole planet is giving voice - there is much restlessness, despair, and uncertainty among the nameless of our nations, of course, I wish I was wrong and that we are not faced with anything but another ordinary course of 1000 years, but - the enemy of the nations, not Satan but some of his greatest demons whose charge it is to make war on whole nations - the beast of war, has left by their activity clues that we can discern - for the hosts of Satan are where they work - having no locality here in our visible universe, we know them by the patterns they leave in time and the wanton and incomprehensible devastation that they cause - little things like, the inclination of secularism to behave in a way that is hostile to the religious establishment, separation of Church and State never once mentioned hostility, only distinction and separation of influence - but not friction and never opposition; the fundamental need to oppose something to derive a sense of meaningfulness that is present in many things and in various degrees, is a spirit that is absent from the original order of our creation - truths stand on their own merit and require neither to oppose nor be opposed to be anything less or anything more meaningful than itself - but half-truths and lies require brute opposition to acquire a sense of meaningfulness that is comprehensible to the human soul - lest the soul do not see in lies and half-truths any kind of utility, it musts that these things constantly prey on the purity and meaningfulness of other truths - and if by themselves these pollute the unseen aspects of human living, what more if this pollution is driven by wicked intelligences that far outmatch the greatest of our human heroes; these evil angels have not the hope that humanity possess but what they do have is time, they can sit it out for tens, scores, hundred of years, here and there planting these things that are alien to our original order in God's creation. Time is an instrument of our LORD, and so time is not static, we are constantly on the move in our souls, aridity and dryness in prayer are never without their own reasons in time, something I still have to learn - time will climax, my precious friend, and where this climax draw near - the assaults of the enemies of our nations and the enemies of our souls will intensify - but when time shall end, I do not know - all I know is that our nations and our peoples need to rest and for this, we must recognize the things that keep us restless and reacquire the things that are proper to our own peace.

But let me say that fear is not the reason why all of this is happening - or why I am saying all of this, perish the illusion of the fear mongering scoundrels who spread fear by the same things I find myself saying, I am not saying this to cause fear, I am saying this so that we may overcome our fear and work for those things that we need to work for - and I don't care what your religion is - or who you are - or the color of your eyes or skin - as long as you have hope in your heart, peace in your mind and good will in your stride, you're ok, we're ok - I'm not here to convert anybody nor to criticize or judge anybody's own progress with God, I am here because I care and so I need to be here - but honestly sometimes I don't know, I just do what needs to be done.

All of that is the human being in me speaking, I can speak the way my Christian heart speaks as well but the peace that I hold belong to all the nations of the one family of nations and so, I have to learn to ascend to the unity of our LORD and speak from realities that are able to embrace all of us at times and all the while, of course, remain true to my own faith and my own Mother Church. I have come to terms with the oneness and uniqueness of our LORD and consider the revelation of the Holy Trinity to be the principal reason why God is manifestly one - they form and inform part of the same reality in my mind and heart - and so identify with Muslims and Jews without feeling anything less or anything more than what I feel - I say one LORD and feel it to be true without hypocrisy and syncretism. I do not need to feel reassured by constantly reinforcing what makes me different from my Abrahamic siblings, I am confident enough of my own Christianity to ascend to the oneness of our LORD. And this - sense of completeness in the oneness and the triune natures of Christian revelation as one reality - is at the core of Ascendant Concentration which is the teaching method I am preparing for the one Solidarity. Because the establishment of the Abrahamic peace between the three great Abrahamic faiths is paramount to securing rest and restoration of the peace for all of our nations of the one family of the nations of mankind. Why? Not because I say so, but because it was promised by God to our Father Abraham.

All of these things that are meant to improve our nations and our lives, remember, improve me - so know that where we are all doing the work together, we all benefit from each others' good - most especially as nations - and what war does to one, war does to all.

It would take time to bring to effect the greater things that are the result of our simple turning away from war but for those of us who attain to the ascent, this simple turning away would become more meaningful the longer one remain in his or her heart with the truth of those things.

Do not take my word for it, by the way, go ahead and check it all out - meditate on it and pray about all of I have written here today - make your own informed decision about these things - inform your faith and empower your reason - do not just take all of these things without first thinking about them and then praying about them - if they belong to you, they will remain with you but they will never remain if you don't make them your own through your own prayer and meditation. Think, my dearest companion, think - but do not think so hard about it, the kind of thinking I suggest does not involve too much exertion - like a calculus problem - no, just relax and think about a thought as if you were in the stillness of a space that is devoid of all things but you and your thoughts with God - silent and yet not empty - practice, practice, practice. On second thought, stop thinking, - imbibe the hope - understand the pain - own the cause - and feel it all in your heart with God - both ways work. Or you can find your own way - peace, my love.

And so, my darlingest, I am glad that we had this chat. I've actually spaced out and was writing as if to somebody else but you, my love. Perhaps, I shall re-read them all on a later time, I really wrote much to you today, my Miyang.

Now, its time to rest. I love you, my Miyang.

Always to always,

Pusing

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