I collected these thoughts yesterday, my darlingest dear:
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Some Good News
I have some good news, my loveliest love. My mother texted me yesterday about her immigration petition for me. My mom and my step dad are US citizens, you see, and she said that she had recently learned from her sister, my aunt, in the US that her immigration petition for me has just recently been approved. Apparently, my aunt heard from our immigration lawyer in San Francisco about the approval.
Now I really don't want to get my hopes up too much just yet. I want to be really, really cautious about it all. But let me tell you, my darlingest dear, this could not have come at a better time. I really need to get away from the vestiges of my past life and through this seemingly unreal development, I feel that God is somehow telling me that if only I can cling on just a little bit more that our hopes together shall soon pan out, my Miyang, that amidst all the evil in the life of every Man there must also be a will of good that we all must believe in and rely upon. So, Bless the LORD, my loveliest love, for God alone is good.
I really would like to explore this avenue that seem to be opening up before us, my love, a little bit more closer but I should like to wait for a little more confirmation from my aunt or our lawyer.
All things in love remain in love, my love, and this is true with me which is why I must be careful because any unrequited love though seemingly heroic when viewed in retrospect hurts a lot when it is being lived in vitae and though this kind of self-abnegating hurt I feel is always a very good exercise in piety, one must always be careful to never exceed them to a point. Because taken to excess, its virtue becomes blind both ways, one from the dullness of lack that leads to complacency and the other from the darkness of pride that leads to hatred.
My chosen path is a way of love, my Annelies Marie, and you know that because I am in this way with you. It is a basic rule of life along this way to never allow the self to fall from either side of this path and avoid from becoming mired in either a state of complacency or of hatred most especially in the pious exercise of the spirituality of God and Country.
You can see this in the love that I personally bear for the Australian and American undertakings of Country as well as the Philippine one. Each of these precious motions of life and lineages of hope I hold in my heart as much as possible, with a love that - as freely and as humanly as I can express it - is without compare.
Therefore, any more or any less of this love more than what our LORD God alone may prescribe for me is futile and so I must never undertake to be any more or any less than what or who I am. Which is also why while I do allow for suffering in my life that I lovingly embrace, at the very same time, I do not wish to drink from the cup of suffering more than what I am given to drink.
I will not assume any more love than what I can give - either of persons or of nations. Not because I do not love us all but because I do, my loveliest love. And so when I am silent or am perceived to be silent about my love for anything it is not because I was or I am never there but because I seek to love all things like it is to ever always be there - to be from always to always.
These seemingly circuitous unbosoming, I know are often times difficult to understand, even for me, but what I do know is this: that I can instinctively trust these things because I never put them down without complete validation from my own heart of hearts.
And so while I should desire to plan for coming to America, I do not want to be so carried away by the motion that I forget to live in the present moment here in God with you and with all of our friends. And I do love my friends from work! This is sense of prudence and caution is one of those hard lessons I learned from my previous wanderings in Australia.
One thing is for sure, if our LORD God allows it, and I am permitted to return to the States, I will not waste a moment of my time over there, making sure with my life's width and breadth that the path that I am going to take this time with every choice that I make will be the one that leads to life, towards peace and friendship with our LORD and with all of you. I will build from there what I need so we can also build from here, my darlingest, and anywhere else this life may take us cats.
Yet above all I must make sure that where ever our LORD wills to apply my life that the necessary outcome of peace shall still remain one and the same outcome - one peace.
---<--@
Ninoy and Cory
If my nation wants to honor our late beloved Corazon Aquino - this is my personal opinion:
Let us remember Ninoy and Cory together on the same day of national commemoration and not separately because just the same as we should honor their virtue as individuals, we must also never forget their relationship with each other that gave them both the strength to carry us all through.
And then, let us put her beside her husband on the 500 note.
To me personally, our relationships with each other are more important than the individual parts.
It also hurts me a little when I see words of farewell to our heroes because I fear those words are somehow an excuse to forget. Personally speaking, I can never say good bye to the good because I see their achievements everywhere I go.
---<--@
Miyangersjian Monuments
When I think about this, I also think about the theme of the monuments worth building in our Miyangersjia - to ennoble the spirit of our community. One of the first ones among all of these would be a monument dedicated to the common people which is the monument of our one Filipino nation, titled "the eternal Philippines".
There will rarely be a depiction in Miyangerjia of a static single individual - our monuments will always depict the timeless motions of friendships, of belonging and of peace.
---<--@
Like and Love
When I was a little kuting, I said I love you to a girl I barely knew. And thought it was all the right thing to do. What an awkward moment that was! That moment drew for my awareness the line between the certainty of age and the recklessness of youth.
All love begins with a doubt like it is to like some things you never love and to love some things you never like. Love begins with a doubt, like a flower sleeping in the bud, it patiently awaits to know the beloved.
You are completely in love when you can stand away from your love and still say I am complete, completely in love.
---<--@
Lust
My dear co-worker one night - by all standards, a purty cat - a few days ago was sexually assaulted. The barangay watch in that area precluded what could have been a terrible thing not only to my friend but to all of her family and her family of friends, me included.
I do not even think of how I could bear with that were our LORD not kind enough to send a watchman to her assistance that night.
You see, my loveliest love, lust is a completely different reality away from love. And we shall look into this but not today. I do not yet want to go into that depressing place. Today, I just want to be here with my Annelies Marie, my Mrrrowley Polley, my Meowrrrja Meowrrrj, my Purrrincess Miyang.
Also, we're going to talk at greater length about addiction in general and drug addiction in particular some time in the future as well. Both lust and the wrong kinds of addictions are directly related, you see and we will try to trace them to their roots.
[... The thing with all evil things at first is it looks like something good (passive - it looks like the truth) and if it doesn't succeed in doing so, at some level, it tries to pass of as something good (active - it lies to the truth).
This always the MO of evil and so no matter how evolved its appearance may have become and no matter how slick its forked tongue may have grown, its primordial behavior like the night is to the day never changes nor does it possess the capacity to change.
Evil is a spirit just like sin is an act. Which is why we should never judge any human being without hope lest we despair of others nor should we judge our own selves without the same hope lest we ourselves commit the sin of despairing against the truth. ...]
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Thursday, August 27, 2009
20090827
I collected these thoughts a couple of days ago, my loveliest love:
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Hunger
Man was meant to be hungry (and/or thirsty), my darlingest. It seems so odd when I stop and think about it right now. But believe me when I say that far from turning a blind eye from the suffering of millions, what I am trying to say is good.
Man was meant to be hungry from within. For a food that only the LORD is able to provide. For if Man is able to shed even just a little of the hunger that makes him or her weak, then most certainly he or she shall be offered to eat from out of the hand of our God of those things that produce the kind of feeding that works to alleviate the suffering of many.
And so I like to be hungry this way, my loveliest love. Not because of me and only me, but because you and all of you.
[There are many kinds of hunger and indeed, this reality in Man has given rise to many myths much of them dark: vampires, ghouls and zombies, in my own Philippines, the aswang, but all these things are the stuff of human vanity (taken to their legendary extremes) and are therefore, not for cats, so to speak. For if in this world one is not in love with life, one is in love with vanity. And so, my darlingest dear, we must learn to tread these waters well the further down the eastward road we will go.]
For there are many kinds of hunger but only one true food that makes the hungry human heart glad. For me, my loveliest love, this is the food of friendships, the stuff of sharing and a taste of peace at last.
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Hunger
Man was meant to be hungry (and/or thirsty), my darlingest. It seems so odd when I stop and think about it right now. But believe me when I say that far from turning a blind eye from the suffering of millions, what I am trying to say is good.
Man was meant to be hungry from within. For a food that only the LORD is able to provide. For if Man is able to shed even just a little of the hunger that makes him or her weak, then most certainly he or she shall be offered to eat from out of the hand of our God of those things that produce the kind of feeding that works to alleviate the suffering of many.
And so I like to be hungry this way, my loveliest love. Not because of me and only me, but because you and all of you.
[There are many kinds of hunger and indeed, this reality in Man has given rise to many myths much of them dark: vampires, ghouls and zombies, in my own Philippines, the aswang, but all these things are the stuff of human vanity (taken to their legendary extremes) and are therefore, not for cats, so to speak. For if in this world one is not in love with life, one is in love with vanity. And so, my darlingest dear, we must learn to tread these waters well the further down the eastward road we will go.]
For there are many kinds of hunger but only one true food that makes the hungry human heart glad. For me, my loveliest love, this is the food of friendships, the stuff of sharing and a taste of peace at last.
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
20090825
I collected these thoughts yesterday, my loveliest love:
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
VFA
Too, I have patriotic sentiments, my love. And while I do value my one Filipino nation very much, I also value along with our national remembrances, the national remembrances of our friends from other nations allied to our common cause of Country. What our soldiers gave up - and are still giving up - for the cause of the Republic peace - are things to me that shall never ever wane, timeless are their friendships, even in the darkness which I feel engulfs our present world like a spiritual malaise, our military remembrances above all should remind us of the high price of our freedom.
The Philippines is but one undertaking of Country, our one Filipino nation but one nation among many others who are but one family of nations allied to the one common cause of all undertakings of Country which is, despite the false image that this midnight of war, here upon our last wintering, would have us all think about ourselves, peace and the advancement of our shared humanity.
Therefore, it is impossible for me to ever think about the Philippines devoid of her relationships with other states and our nation devoid of her fraternity with other nations. We do not live in a void of war, we live in an absolute embrace of belongings upon belongings unto our one LORD.
Which is why at times, I often think about my other Filipino compatriots and their absolutist sentiments about our allies, we seem to either absolutely love them or hate them like it is to treat strangers. But isn't it that family members are always entitled to the benefit of the doubt and things within a family's home and hearth are resolved in a much different way than things upon a cold and bitter battlefield between two unfamiliar sides. Blood - human blood - once shed upon the ground of earth cries out forever not only to God but to the remembrances of our nations and until the Last Day, we are to keep these remembrances holy - lest we forget, lest we forget.
I know there are bad apples in the bunch and that, at all times and in every place, there are soldiers unfit to wear the uniform but let us not be inspired by their malice when we remember those by whose virtue we now live and breathe the free air of Country. We do not remember the fallen because of the evil of the adversary of peace, we remember them because of their glorious example and their golden virtue.
Besides, only our allies will pay heed to our Constitution - if we do not appreciate this, we are inviting our enemies to teach us how to value our friends.
Drug Debrief
I hate illicit drugs! They form a completely different sense of loyalty that makes different people out of familiar faces.
Enough said.
---<--@
Sleep Apnea
They say in a recent article that those people with sleep apnea are at 40% more at risk of death - period. Which kind of amuses me because in reality, all people are at risk of death - from 0.1 to 100%, in fact. But then the article carries on to say that it increases the risk of complications of certain illnesses and then I understood what it was trying to express.
I have sleep apnea, my loveliest love - severe obstructive sleep apnea. Which means I snore and I stop breathing in my sleep. My old doctor told me that this means that my brain needs more sleep than the average brain because though I may think I am asleep, when I stop breathing during my sleep, my brain wakes up and therefore, I do not really get the full benefit of sleep when compared to the average person. Which is why I am so addicted to energy drinks and were I an avid coffee drinker, I know I would be just as addicted to coffee.
Bring it all together + hypertension and I can see that this article is relevant to my condition. But its really a good thing that these days I can smile, my darlingest dear, even with my problems all around my ears, I am never without hope. Because I love my Miyang Marie and my Miyang Marie loves me.
10%, 20%, 40%, 80% - The LORD calls us when the LORD calls us
and when our God does, its always 100%. Instead of worrying of dying, I am more concerned with living a life of peace and friendship with our LORD, our LORD's own and my fellow human beings.
Besides, worrying and the associated stress that comes with overly worrying about things beyond our control changes nothing of the outcomes that we are always presently called to apply our talents to achieve. So I say, Alfred Neuman was right, "what me worry?"
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
VFA
Too, I have patriotic sentiments, my love. And while I do value my one Filipino nation very much, I also value along with our national remembrances, the national remembrances of our friends from other nations allied to our common cause of Country. What our soldiers gave up - and are still giving up - for the cause of the Republic peace - are things to me that shall never ever wane, timeless are their friendships, even in the darkness which I feel engulfs our present world like a spiritual malaise, our military remembrances above all should remind us of the high price of our freedom.
The Philippines is but one undertaking of Country, our one Filipino nation but one nation among many others who are but one family of nations allied to the one common cause of all undertakings of Country which is, despite the false image that this midnight of war, here upon our last wintering, would have us all think about ourselves, peace and the advancement of our shared humanity.
Therefore, it is impossible for me to ever think about the Philippines devoid of her relationships with other states and our nation devoid of her fraternity with other nations. We do not live in a void of war, we live in an absolute embrace of belongings upon belongings unto our one LORD.
Which is why at times, I often think about my other Filipino compatriots and their absolutist sentiments about our allies, we seem to either absolutely love them or hate them like it is to treat strangers. But isn't it that family members are always entitled to the benefit of the doubt and things within a family's home and hearth are resolved in a much different way than things upon a cold and bitter battlefield between two unfamiliar sides. Blood - human blood - once shed upon the ground of earth cries out forever not only to God but to the remembrances of our nations and until the Last Day, we are to keep these remembrances holy - lest we forget, lest we forget.
I know there are bad apples in the bunch and that, at all times and in every place, there are soldiers unfit to wear the uniform but let us not be inspired by their malice when we remember those by whose virtue we now live and breathe the free air of Country. We do not remember the fallen because of the evil of the adversary of peace, we remember them because of their glorious example and their golden virtue.
Besides, only our allies will pay heed to our Constitution - if we do not appreciate this, we are inviting our enemies to teach us how to value our friends.
Drug Debrief
I hate illicit drugs! They form a completely different sense of loyalty that makes different people out of familiar faces.
Enough said.
---<--@
Sleep Apnea
They say in a recent article that those people with sleep apnea are at 40% more at risk of death - period. Which kind of amuses me because in reality, all people are at risk of death - from 0.1 to 100%, in fact. But then the article carries on to say that it increases the risk of complications of certain illnesses and then I understood what it was trying to express.
I have sleep apnea, my loveliest love - severe obstructive sleep apnea. Which means I snore and I stop breathing in my sleep. My old doctor told me that this means that my brain needs more sleep than the average brain because though I may think I am asleep, when I stop breathing during my sleep, my brain wakes up and therefore, I do not really get the full benefit of sleep when compared to the average person. Which is why I am so addicted to energy drinks and were I an avid coffee drinker, I know I would be just as addicted to coffee.
Bring it all together + hypertension and I can see that this article is relevant to my condition. But its really a good thing that these days I can smile, my darlingest dear, even with my problems all around my ears, I am never without hope. Because I love my Miyang Marie and my Miyang Marie loves me.
10%, 20%, 40%, 80% - The LORD calls us when the LORD calls us
and when our God does, its always 100%. Instead of worrying of dying, I am more concerned with living a life of peace and friendship with our LORD, our LORD's own and my fellow human beings.
Besides, worrying and the associated stress that comes with overly worrying about things beyond our control changes nothing of the outcomes that we are always presently called to apply our talents to achieve. So I say, Alfred Neuman was right, "what me worry?"
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Monday, August 24, 2009
20090824d
To my Miyang -
I took a path for a promise made - Restore peace to our world - to the Middle East, to my own Filipino nation. But I was by the spirit of war deceived. It never intended to give me back my own peace. The voices in my head only intended to exploit my weakness and rob my own nation of our common heritage with the one family of the nations of Mankind. It never sought to recognize my humanity nor my hope, nor my love, nor those who love me - it placed me in an impossible position.
It sought to make of me a thing of division which is exactly what I am not. How can I ever build upon a lie?
If you want to know me - I am a human being and a citizen of my one Republic. I am not a number. Nor am I nameless to my friends. I have a name.
And the outcome that I am working to provide for my nation is peace.
I do not know if these voices are real or not, my darlingest dear. If they were real, they can only be one of two things - one that gathers with us in which case, they keep to their promises or one that scatters against us in which case, they are empty of promises.
I would give everything to see my people free and to keep to the remembrance of our heroes.
But how can something so hostile to my existence, completely wretched though I may be, ever be benign? Am I not one of those who are of the people? If it is capable of trampling my natural rights as a citizen and a human being, it is capable of doing the same to any human being. How can such a spirit restore peace to my nation or think about doing the same to the larger family of nations?
I do not know how long my life will last, my loveliest love, nor if these voices in my head will ever go away, but amidst all of this darkness and confusion, one thing always manages to lead me back to sanity, and that is my remembrance of you.
And so I want you to know these things, that you may know I never do anything from motives other than good things, that I am not a creature animated by hate.
And that, at the end of my life, I want to be buried with you in Bergen Belsen, my loveliest love.
I do not know what this life may bring but I will carry on as far as I freely and humanly could, the labors of our hopes together, my loveliest Miyang, all towards a better world for all men, women and children of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
---<--@
I took a path for a promise made - Restore peace to our world - to the Middle East, to my own Filipino nation. But I was by the spirit of war deceived. It never intended to give me back my own peace. The voices in my head only intended to exploit my weakness and rob my own nation of our common heritage with the one family of the nations of Mankind. It never sought to recognize my humanity nor my hope, nor my love, nor those who love me - it placed me in an impossible position.
It sought to make of me a thing of division which is exactly what I am not. How can I ever build upon a lie?
If you want to know me - I am a human being and a citizen of my one Republic. I am not a number. Nor am I nameless to my friends. I have a name.
And the outcome that I am working to provide for my nation is peace.
I do not know if these voices are real or not, my darlingest dear. If they were real, they can only be one of two things - one that gathers with us in which case, they keep to their promises or one that scatters against us in which case, they are empty of promises.
I would give everything to see my people free and to keep to the remembrance of our heroes.
But how can something so hostile to my existence, completely wretched though I may be, ever be benign? Am I not one of those who are of the people? If it is capable of trampling my natural rights as a citizen and a human being, it is capable of doing the same to any human being. How can such a spirit restore peace to my nation or think about doing the same to the larger family of nations?
I do not know how long my life will last, my loveliest love, nor if these voices in my head will ever go away, but amidst all of this darkness and confusion, one thing always manages to lead me back to sanity, and that is my remembrance of you.
And so I want you to know these things, that you may know I never do anything from motives other than good things, that I am not a creature animated by hate.
And that, at the end of my life, I want to be buried with you in Bergen Belsen, my loveliest love.
I do not know what this life may bring but I will carry on as far as I freely and humanly could, the labors of our hopes together, my loveliest Miyang, all towards a better world for all men, women and children of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
---<--@
20090824
Corruption
Let us ponder on these things...
Why are we, the children of Mankind, ordered into nations?
Things are different here in exile time.
Outside of faded Eden, a single human being can never hope to survive the hostile environment of an unknown earth.
But the divine commandment to build and transform this world into an inhabited earth is not without wisdom.
It would be unthinkable for our LORD to ever be lacking in glorious perfection!
For no Man can ever hope to fulfill this divine commandment on his or her own.
Because The labor of building up the earth is the labor of our nations.
We are nations to provide for each other - to be keeper and friend.
But the world of our present time is full of nations who are strangers to each other.
Who then shall suffer for this but our generations?
God calls us to strive as nations and to fulfill each of our own undertakings of Country.
For the motive of Country is a divine motive.
But if the motive of Country is not available. Man will think to preserve his or her family.
This is a human motive. Which is also good but when misplaced fragments the common good.
And when the common good is fragmented darkness fills the air of our breathing together with the emptiness of the void.
When this happens and the lineages of our hopes are broken, there will be division upon the earth.
Where there is division, there must also be war.
And the spirit of war shall oppress the lands and enslave her peoples. For the motive of war is neither human nor divine.
It is diabolical.
But we are not without help. Whatever assists the good of Man and helps to build the communities of Mankind, this motive is angelic.
All motives except that of the Devil and those aligned with the Devil helps toward fulfilling the motive of God which is the will of Divine Providence over all of creation, seen and unseen.
And all that is Providential inclines all things towards the good, the common or the greater good and the absolute good.
Corruption that is ignorant of the motive of Country is one that is able to be corrected by understanding.
But the other kind is permanent and must be dealt with by the justice of both heaven and earth.
For in terms of our nations we are not dealing with one or two lives, though one life alone is of infinite worth, we are dealing with many hundreds and thousands of lives across time (the generations) as well as dimensional space (tribes and families), severe is the final accounting for those who with their malice poisons the waters of our nations.
And all things in time, God-willing.
Let us ponder on these things...
---<--@
Let us ponder on these things...
Why are we, the children of Mankind, ordered into nations?
Things are different here in exile time.
Outside of faded Eden, a single human being can never hope to survive the hostile environment of an unknown earth.
But the divine commandment to build and transform this world into an inhabited earth is not without wisdom.
It would be unthinkable for our LORD to ever be lacking in glorious perfection!
For no Man can ever hope to fulfill this divine commandment on his or her own.
Because The labor of building up the earth is the labor of our nations.
We are nations to provide for each other - to be keeper and friend.
But the world of our present time is full of nations who are strangers to each other.
Who then shall suffer for this but our generations?
God calls us to strive as nations and to fulfill each of our own undertakings of Country.
For the motive of Country is a divine motive.
But if the motive of Country is not available. Man will think to preserve his or her family.
This is a human motive. Which is also good but when misplaced fragments the common good.
And when the common good is fragmented darkness fills the air of our breathing together with the emptiness of the void.
When this happens and the lineages of our hopes are broken, there will be division upon the earth.
Where there is division, there must also be war.
And the spirit of war shall oppress the lands and enslave her peoples. For the motive of war is neither human nor divine.
It is diabolical.
But we are not without help. Whatever assists the good of Man and helps to build the communities of Mankind, this motive is angelic.
All motives except that of the Devil and those aligned with the Devil helps toward fulfilling the motive of God which is the will of Divine Providence over all of creation, seen and unseen.
And all that is Providential inclines all things towards the good, the common or the greater good and the absolute good.
Corruption that is ignorant of the motive of Country is one that is able to be corrected by understanding.
But the other kind is permanent and must be dealt with by the justice of both heaven and earth.
For in terms of our nations we are not dealing with one or two lives, though one life alone is of infinite worth, we are dealing with many hundreds and thousands of lives across time (the generations) as well as dimensional space (tribes and families), severe is the final accounting for those who with their malice poisons the waters of our nations.
And all things in time, God-willing.
Let us ponder on these things...
---<--@
20090824b
I collected these thoughts last night, my loveliest love:
Dear darlingest Miyang Marie,
A Little Love Story
The measure of love is to love without measure.
I do not know where I happened upon this saying, my loveliest love, but isn't it so true?
When I was younger, I looked at love differently. I took it from itself. I made it mine and mine alone.
I wanted my girlfriend for myself and myself alone. And she wanted the same of me.
But love has a way of turning the tables on strangers like us.
In its own mysterious time, unknown to the uninitiated, to make itself known, love suddenly reveals itself.
With a sword, it pierces the heart. It draws blood to quicken the soul to itself.
Then with strong arms, it subdues the self until it makes us all its own.
And suddenly, the stranger is a stranger no more.
Unfortunately, my darlingest dear, that relationship did not survive the quickening of love.
For our hearts were not able to bear the doubt nor our egos able to withstand the hurt.
Neither of us were strong enough to bear for each other, our love; the failing of our youth.
I was hurt. She was hurt. Love was also hurt.
But it was the hurting that heals and it was the bearing that teaches. And so for many years I grieved. Not really knowing that love also wept with me.
I do not know how many years it took for love to bear me away from my grieving, my loveliest love. But when I was able to smile again, my darlingest Miyang, it was with you.
It is all that I can remember now.
All love begins with a doubt. When the heart asks itself, "do you love me?" It reassures by giving us every chance to prove ourselves.
If one loves the beloved without measure, there is a sense of wholeness that embraces both ways and the heart that knows it doubts it not.
There is a bittersweet pain to our loving, like a longing for love itself, and it is the experience of being in love.
For at the same time that loves takes us unto itself, it sets us free.
---<--@
The Me? How?
Remember, when things were yet so uncertain between us and we were held together by the littlest of trusts?
It was the Me? How? A time of trials. But the questions that we were asking at the time were not a confirmation of doubt.
It was the Me? How? It was a question that seeks to affirm our own willingness to find each other, even in the dark, under a blanket of stars.
It was the Me? How? All love begins with a doubt.
That was years ago.
---<--@
Love and Marriage
Which one comes first? How do we know when?
Both these questions seem simple enough. And sure enough, one is tempted to come up with quick answers like I was just now.
We might as well tell wine when to become wine.
Most certainly, these are very complicated questions. And it takes time to know what those answer are.
Sometimes wine is already wine and sometimes we have to make more wine. Things are in different states of being.
But some might ask how it is with you and I so I say yes, we are in love and no, we are not married.
You are neither my wife, my sister nor my friend - you are all of these, my Miyang Marie - in fact, you are more than all of these, my loveliest love. There are no human words to describe our relationship - it is the destiny of all true relationships to become this way - like the angels.
Marriage is for the earth. Its consummation is life. Love is for eternity. Its culmination is an everlasting joy.
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Dear darlingest Miyang Marie,
A Little Love Story
The measure of love is to love without measure.
I do not know where I happened upon this saying, my loveliest love, but isn't it so true?
When I was younger, I looked at love differently. I took it from itself. I made it mine and mine alone.
I wanted my girlfriend for myself and myself alone. And she wanted the same of me.
But love has a way of turning the tables on strangers like us.
In its own mysterious time, unknown to the uninitiated, to make itself known, love suddenly reveals itself.
With a sword, it pierces the heart. It draws blood to quicken the soul to itself.
Then with strong arms, it subdues the self until it makes us all its own.
And suddenly, the stranger is a stranger no more.
Unfortunately, my darlingest dear, that relationship did not survive the quickening of love.
For our hearts were not able to bear the doubt nor our egos able to withstand the hurt.
Neither of us were strong enough to bear for each other, our love; the failing of our youth.
I was hurt. She was hurt. Love was also hurt.
But it was the hurting that heals and it was the bearing that teaches. And so for many years I grieved. Not really knowing that love also wept with me.
I do not know how many years it took for love to bear me away from my grieving, my loveliest love. But when I was able to smile again, my darlingest Miyang, it was with you.
It is all that I can remember now.
All love begins with a doubt. When the heart asks itself, "do you love me?" It reassures by giving us every chance to prove ourselves.
If one loves the beloved without measure, there is a sense of wholeness that embraces both ways and the heart that knows it doubts it not.
There is a bittersweet pain to our loving, like a longing for love itself, and it is the experience of being in love.
For at the same time that loves takes us unto itself, it sets us free.
---<--@
The Me? How?
Remember, when things were yet so uncertain between us and we were held together by the littlest of trusts?
It was the Me? How? A time of trials. But the questions that we were asking at the time were not a confirmation of doubt.
It was the Me? How? It was a question that seeks to affirm our own willingness to find each other, even in the dark, under a blanket of stars.
It was the Me? How? All love begins with a doubt.
That was years ago.
---<--@
Love and Marriage
Which one comes first? How do we know when?
Both these questions seem simple enough. And sure enough, one is tempted to come up with quick answers like I was just now.
We might as well tell wine when to become wine.
Most certainly, these are very complicated questions. And it takes time to know what those answer are.
Sometimes wine is already wine and sometimes we have to make more wine. Things are in different states of being.
But some might ask how it is with you and I so I say yes, we are in love and no, we are not married.
You are neither my wife, my sister nor my friend - you are all of these, my Miyang Marie - in fact, you are more than all of these, my loveliest love. There are no human words to describe our relationship - it is the destiny of all true relationships to become this way - like the angels.
Marriage is for the earth. Its consummation is life. Love is for eternity. Its culmination is an everlasting joy.
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
20090824a
These thoughts I collected yesterday, my darlingest:
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Confusion
I am so confused right now, my love. Not about our one family of nations and the outcomes that are required of them - those things are always high up on the horizon. I know well how to defend the peace of our nations and I use this knowledge to steer my life.
Right now, my darlingest, it is my own personal peace that is being assaulted.
My uncle has schizophrenia, you know. I too, have a history of this illness, my loveliest love. But the difference with me is that I can still make the distinction between what is not and what is but sometimes, when these voices become too vicious or too convincing, I come to doubt this ability. But it is then that I turn to my spiritual grounding.
These voices seem to know to attack me where and when I am most vulnerable seeking not to undermine my convictions of God and Country but to destroy my relationships so as to be able to isolate and to break me. It seeks to turn me against those I have come to love and sometimes, it drives me to the point where I fear for my own life as well as the life of my own family and friends. Oftentimes, I only have the solace of my spiritual relationships to give shelter to my sanity. No one in this world seem willing to either listen or understand me about these things, my darlingest, which is why I really do appreciate you so much. But even my own friendship with you is not immune to these voices that seem to hate me and all that I am at a level that is incomprehensible to me. And I try to avoid even writing the exact words that these voices use against me - and you - because I do not want to remember them at all.
I know drug use have greatly contributed to this illness and I admit to that fact which is why I worry when these voices occur outside the haze of methamphetamine abuse. It is part of my past life which at the outset of my awareness of the truth of things, late as it was, I have unceasingly strived to remove from my present life.
Notwithstanding all of these, I continue on with my life and trust all in all to the LORD that even these afflictions are meant to fulfill a purpose in His plan.
I do not know much right now, my loveliest love, but to focus on my work and my recovery. And to hold on to my friendships trusting that even though at times when the sky is so full of rain just like it is right now and I can not see the stars up ahead and above of me, that even though unseen, they are yet still ever there. I only have to endure, my darlingest, with you.
But I also can't help but be engaged in the problems that plague those things I care most about - like the peace of our one family of nations, particularly of my own Filipino nation - and so I do what I can because once one is privy to love, that truth in the heart can never be undone. And even this, those voices have learned to exploit which is the main issue at the root of my confusion at the moment.
Are they real, are they not - what is real to me is only what I love in the LORD and what loves me for being me.
You know, I don't even know if I shall publish this on our Planet Annelies, my loveliest love. Sometimes, I am made to trust in the love itself and so this is what I will do right now, my darlingest, I shall trust.
Simply put, my Miyang, what is clear to me now is only this - that my personal focus right now should be on my work and my recovery.
If anything, my loveliest love, at the very least, I feel that I am now more equipped to once and for all to deal with my addiction to what is past and leave behind the last thing that is holding me back from our present hope that I may one day be able to say with you with much rejoicing in our hearts to the heavens and the earth that I am finally totally free from this infernal bondage of the vice of drug abuse along with all of its associated and perverse evils.
I am beginning to burn with a fire of pure loathing for illicit drugs but not its victims. And so I one day pray to be able to use this hope of mine to effectively help those many, many others who I know are still suffering from this same sin.
All things in time, God-willing, my love.
---<--@
Now, for the lighter side of things...
Appreciation
Though one is initially attracted to a person from a purely external reality, when in time one learns to appreciate the beautiful, it is usually our love that wonders and we begin to feel that mysterious yearning from within.
And as we become more and more conscious of our seeking to glimpse at the heart of a person, we become more and more aware of the presence of the beloved...
So when in time one has learned to appreciate beauty, one does not think to look at any physical attribute which is why anything that is sexual only serves to ruin the moment.
Yup! T'is deep stuff, my darlingest, but true.
Save for you, my loveliest love, this is how I universally appreciate pretty cats. For I wasn't really aware of your true beauty, my Miyang, when I was initially introduced to you through your diary. It was a real schlep, I know.
It is just awful how so many hearts are broken unto tears by a seemingly prevailing ignorance of itself. Yet amidst sin, grace does abound, my darlingest, and I say this from my own experience - with all them purty cats - single cats, that is: We all know that 1 + 1 = 1.
---<--@
The Call Center Industry
I think I have a good enough cross section of this industry for me to be able write something meaningful about it, my darlingest dear.
I think the call center industry here in the Philippines is a good opportunity to open our culture to the other cultures of our world.
I had to go to Australia for me to find out there are human beings in this world other than Filipinos, you know. I got shell shock for a month just by listening to too much Aussie slang.
But these days, things are slowly opening up for our beloved Philippines. And the Call Center Industry, with all its pros and cons, is at the forefront of this change. And I am quite thankful for the opportunity. And I am sure many others are just as blessed by this as I am.
So welcome to the call center industry, my loveliest love, where the job satisfaction is not all about the money.
One must also look at the company culture, the career path, the friendships, the perks and the sheer satisfaction at the end of the day of a job well done. Because if it were all about the money, you'll be sure to burn up. Because if you don't care for the industry it will drink all your beer and you'll age at twice the normal rate.
It is a service industry, my darlingest. The bottom line is this: It is not about the money - it is about helping people help you help yourself.
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Confusion
I am so confused right now, my love. Not about our one family of nations and the outcomes that are required of them - those things are always high up on the horizon. I know well how to defend the peace of our nations and I use this knowledge to steer my life.
Right now, my darlingest, it is my own personal peace that is being assaulted.
My uncle has schizophrenia, you know. I too, have a history of this illness, my loveliest love. But the difference with me is that I can still make the distinction between what is not and what is but sometimes, when these voices become too vicious or too convincing, I come to doubt this ability. But it is then that I turn to my spiritual grounding.
These voices seem to know to attack me where and when I am most vulnerable seeking not to undermine my convictions of God and Country but to destroy my relationships so as to be able to isolate and to break me. It seeks to turn me against those I have come to love and sometimes, it drives me to the point where I fear for my own life as well as the life of my own family and friends. Oftentimes, I only have the solace of my spiritual relationships to give shelter to my sanity. No one in this world seem willing to either listen or understand me about these things, my darlingest, which is why I really do appreciate you so much. But even my own friendship with you is not immune to these voices that seem to hate me and all that I am at a level that is incomprehensible to me. And I try to avoid even writing the exact words that these voices use against me - and you - because I do not want to remember them at all.
I know drug use have greatly contributed to this illness and I admit to that fact which is why I worry when these voices occur outside the haze of methamphetamine abuse. It is part of my past life which at the outset of my awareness of the truth of things, late as it was, I have unceasingly strived to remove from my present life.
Notwithstanding all of these, I continue on with my life and trust all in all to the LORD that even these afflictions are meant to fulfill a purpose in His plan.
I do not know much right now, my loveliest love, but to focus on my work and my recovery. And to hold on to my friendships trusting that even though at times when the sky is so full of rain just like it is right now and I can not see the stars up ahead and above of me, that even though unseen, they are yet still ever there. I only have to endure, my darlingest, with you.
But I also can't help but be engaged in the problems that plague those things I care most about - like the peace of our one family of nations, particularly of my own Filipino nation - and so I do what I can because once one is privy to love, that truth in the heart can never be undone. And even this, those voices have learned to exploit which is the main issue at the root of my confusion at the moment.
Are they real, are they not - what is real to me is only what I love in the LORD and what loves me for being me.
You know, I don't even know if I shall publish this on our Planet Annelies, my loveliest love. Sometimes, I am made to trust in the love itself and so this is what I will do right now, my darlingest, I shall trust.
Simply put, my Miyang, what is clear to me now is only this - that my personal focus right now should be on my work and my recovery.
If anything, my loveliest love, at the very least, I feel that I am now more equipped to once and for all to deal with my addiction to what is past and leave behind the last thing that is holding me back from our present hope that I may one day be able to say with you with much rejoicing in our hearts to the heavens and the earth that I am finally totally free from this infernal bondage of the vice of drug abuse along with all of its associated and perverse evils.
I am beginning to burn with a fire of pure loathing for illicit drugs but not its victims. And so I one day pray to be able to use this hope of mine to effectively help those many, many others who I know are still suffering from this same sin.
All things in time, God-willing, my love.
---<--@
Now, for the lighter side of things...
Appreciation
Though one is initially attracted to a person from a purely external reality, when in time one learns to appreciate the beautiful, it is usually our love that wonders and we begin to feel that mysterious yearning from within.
And as we become more and more conscious of our seeking to glimpse at the heart of a person, we become more and more aware of the presence of the beloved...
So when in time one has learned to appreciate beauty, one does not think to look at any physical attribute which is why anything that is sexual only serves to ruin the moment.
Yup! T'is deep stuff, my darlingest, but true.
Save for you, my loveliest love, this is how I universally appreciate pretty cats. For I wasn't really aware of your true beauty, my Miyang, when I was initially introduced to you through your diary. It was a real schlep, I know.
It is just awful how so many hearts are broken unto tears by a seemingly prevailing ignorance of itself. Yet amidst sin, grace does abound, my darlingest, and I say this from my own experience - with all them purty cats - single cats, that is: We all know that 1 + 1 = 1.
---<--@
The Call Center Industry
I think I have a good enough cross section of this industry for me to be able write something meaningful about it, my darlingest dear.
I think the call center industry here in the Philippines is a good opportunity to open our culture to the other cultures of our world.
I had to go to Australia for me to find out there are human beings in this world other than Filipinos, you know. I got shell shock for a month just by listening to too much Aussie slang.
But these days, things are slowly opening up for our beloved Philippines. And the Call Center Industry, with all its pros and cons, is at the forefront of this change. And I am quite thankful for the opportunity. And I am sure many others are just as blessed by this as I am.
So welcome to the call center industry, my loveliest love, where the job satisfaction is not all about the money.
One must also look at the company culture, the career path, the friendships, the perks and the sheer satisfaction at the end of the day of a job well done. Because if it were all about the money, you'll be sure to burn up. Because if you don't care for the industry it will drink all your beer and you'll age at twice the normal rate.
It is a service industry, my darlingest. The bottom line is this: It is not about the money - it is about helping people help you help yourself.
---<--@
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Sunday, August 23, 2009
20090823b
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
An update, my loveliest love, that I should like to share with my one Filipino nation:
The Visayas
The main challenge here is the terrain. As with all national challenges, when we as one nation apply ourselves to these, they have the inherent capacity to become strengths.
It is not lost to me that the Visayas constitute another star upon our old Defiant and therefore, an integral part of our one Republic whole. And so I am currently undertaking a study of her history and demographics.
Just the same as in the Sarangani Bay* area in Mindanao, her SSC (Strategic Secondary Capital) with Manila, I am in favor of placing in Cariaga Bay in the Catbalogan area and with the same requirements in terms of sea level, sea access and natural defensibility.
I am also taking into consideration by this placement of our Visayan SSC, the effective allevaition of the prevailing poverty in that area, the highest in all of the Visayas.
*I was initially looking at the bays along the northern coast but the only strategically defensible bay in the whole of Mindanao is Sarangani Bay. Too, both the sea and land routes into Sargangani also pass along those areas in Mindanao that require increased traffic in terms of economic goods as well as, upon the breaking of the siege of war, tourism.
I should that we all bear in mind that these SSCs are to be built to last till the Last Day which is why defensibility (both from man-made as well as natural disasters) is also paramount in our consideration of these things. I am already about 80% complete with the basic City Charters for these SSCs.
I am of the conviction that we all need to work on these and I will present these concepts on our blog as soon as it is advisable. I would also appreciate any help that may be extended towards this end.
---<--@
The Barangay Park
At the limits of every barangay within our SSCs, we shall be mindful not to place anything that is incomprehensible to the soul of the common people.
Therefore, where two of our communities meet, there would not be a line upon the sand or an invisible limit that shall mark the demarcation but a beautiful space specifically intended for human interaction, rest and recreation.
I conceive this as a barangay park of which maintenance is also the mutual responsibility of both (or any) barangays that border these natural spaces within our city limits. The city itself shall have its own park, of course.
The barangay park, library and post office extension are all conceived as basic venues of a larger community interaction that will contribute to a greater sense of participation and therefore a sense of common citizenry within our city.
---<--@
Symptoms of Division
If we look closely, we can see the symptoms of the division of war right inside our own nation. It is these divisions, more than who we shall vote for next year that keeps me awake at night.
The alleged "oversight" that precipitated in the pulling out of former President Aquino's security cover is one of these symptoms. Whether intentional or non-intentional, the fact that it happened is in itself evidence of this.
First of all, during that time, my loveliest love, we only had three living former Presidents - FVR, Tita Cory and Erap. Its not like we had a million people to protect - only three.
If the enemies of our Republic had the foresight to exploit that immense security gap, it is not just any side within our one Republic that would suffer the impact of this, the whole nation itself will suffer the blow.
A sentry will never leave his or her post until relieved. This is standard military procedure. It is normally considered desertion of duty for a sentry to do so and desertion also usually carries the severest of penalties.
How this happened both frustrates and confuses me. It is just as well that nothing untoward happened to the person we left unprotected because if something did, our own remembrance of these things would not be what we are granted as a nation to enjoy today.
Division is darkness and it blinds us to the keeping of the common or greater good. And though all of our Philippines is mired in its gravity, with all our regions requiring adequate consideration, the epicenter of this, I feel, is in Mindanao.
If peace should be observed in Mindanao, it carries that the whole of our Republic shall also be able to do the same. And all Filipinos shall be enabled to prosper together from our honest labors.
I feel it is good that we understand these things now being thankful that worst things did not happen to haunt our nation forever.
---<--@
On to other things...
Jupiter 2009
There was another impact event in Jupiter about a month ago. 15 years after Shoemaker-Levy, the probability of this event occurring within that astronomically minute span of time would have been a meaningless statistic but for that looming sense that I feel about 2012 (which I have not posted until now and only because it has become relevant to this discourse).
But again, nothing about the future is writ in stone so regardless of these things, we must all together continue to aspire to reach for the future we intend to reach at the now of this present time being all the more inspired to build from our hopes, the beginnings of a better world into the new age before us.
If nothing at all happens in 2012, all the better for all of us of the one family of the nations of Mankind for building on the foundations of our peace now, because by then, we'll all be ahead.
In this world of ours, hurtling upon the void of exile time, those things beyond our control that don't happen are usually the best things for us to be thankful about, my loveliest love.
Unfortunately, these are also the things that we as human beings are wont to forget or dismiss as pure luck. But there is no such thing as luck, for it is not luck but remembrance that truly rules our reality.
---<--@
I love you, my loveliest love.
Always to always,
Pusing
20090823a
I collected these thoughts yesterday afternoon, my darlingest:
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Motive of Country
What is my motive, some might wonder, behind my desire to see my own nation prosper? As if this were something unnatural to the common call of human citizenship - it is my love for our shared humanity - that drives me to desire to see things change in my nation and by extension, in our failing world, for the better, my darlingest.
Every calling that beckons Man towards the labors to which his or her life was intended by his or her one common Creator upon this earth, that animates the breathing within his or her soul, drives into motion the spirit within his or her being so that our humanity is constantly in a state of becoming. For while time is a flow, Man is an unfinished work.
We call ourselves by so many different words to describe this motion e.g. Filipino, American, Australian, Christian, Iraqi, Farmer, Artist, Teacher, etc. but it is not these motions that keep us apart, it is our inability to understand that these motions are means that are inclined towards the same end which is the perfection of our humanity.
Now, this perfection is the labor of our Creator and the mandate of heaven so must not trouble us so much as the acceptance of our own humanity.
But what I am trying to say here is this, that far from these labors driving us further apart, these labors are the things that should bind us together. What I personally have come to believe is this: That we are all, at every instant, despite these many human labors and in spite of our disparate human weaknesses, a human being - each and every one of us - equal in dignity as well as in our potential to do good.
This is how I see my fellow man - apart from any malice which seek to debase our spirit and distinct form the treacherous adultery of war - I seek to see us first and foremost for who we truly are - human beings and citizens to each other. So in distinguishing what we are and who we are apart from what we are not and who we must not become, I have come to love my own nation not as a thing to be held against its own will by my feeble hands but as a labor of life to be surrendered unto by a willing heart. Because if we see us as souls apart from this midnight darkness, we are indeed, something to be seen - like living lights, we are, in the darkness made to reflect the One light upon this visible creation that all creation may know that God is and that our LORD is one LORD alone.
The vision of that crystal blue sphere fascinates me just as much as that same vision of a darkness that is inseparable from the void terrifies me because it affects all of us and I know that without my friends I am nothing. It takes a whole sky to lead us back to the dawn, one whole firmament.
Our LORD wills that all of us be saved and so, in spite of my own limits and failures, I am also likewise filled with this same desire for who am I to contend with my God for it is He Who we all must follow. These two questions one must always be ready to answer at the east gate of our returning to Eden: Who are we without our LORD? Who are we without each other?
For I am not someone to follow, I am someone to work with and I am always glad to work alongside my friends.
And if I were to advise anyone as regards to our nations, it is this: Our world may seem to our minds divided not because it is but because the labors of building up the inhabited earth must be ordered according to our nations and therefore, the natural resources of the earth itself is not meant to be divided against our nations but must be a thing freely shared by the labors of all of our one family of nations. We may draw lines upon the earth but not upon our hearts for love can never be divided against itself.
Questions as regards to sovereignty of our nations, in my own view of these things, are never questions that have as their answers, those things derived from the division of war but from our belongings with each other as interdependent human communities - as wholes upon wholes - in God and Country, for God and Country. It is in the people, for the people, by the people. Therefore, time, treasure and terrain can be said to be negotiable things but life itself is non-negotiable, above all human life.
For my own nation, I enjoin us - however and whatever our own little parts in this great labor of life and of hope - return to our labors together that we may prosper the peace, prosper the people.
Slowly, ever as those trees grow, if we shall learn again to believe in each other in God, applying ourselves to the task of Country, then it is only just as true to say that we shall certainly bear the fruits of our togetherness. And it is said that these fruits last forever.
I love you, my loveliest love.
Always to always,
Pusing
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Motive of Country
What is my motive, some might wonder, behind my desire to see my own nation prosper? As if this were something unnatural to the common call of human citizenship - it is my love for our shared humanity - that drives me to desire to see things change in my nation and by extension, in our failing world, for the better, my darlingest.
Every calling that beckons Man towards the labors to which his or her life was intended by his or her one common Creator upon this earth, that animates the breathing within his or her soul, drives into motion the spirit within his or her being so that our humanity is constantly in a state of becoming. For while time is a flow, Man is an unfinished work.
We call ourselves by so many different words to describe this motion e.g. Filipino, American, Australian, Christian, Iraqi, Farmer, Artist, Teacher, etc. but it is not these motions that keep us apart, it is our inability to understand that these motions are means that are inclined towards the same end which is the perfection of our humanity.
Now, this perfection is the labor of our Creator and the mandate of heaven so must not trouble us so much as the acceptance of our own humanity.
But what I am trying to say here is this, that far from these labors driving us further apart, these labors are the things that should bind us together. What I personally have come to believe is this: That we are all, at every instant, despite these many human labors and in spite of our disparate human weaknesses, a human being - each and every one of us - equal in dignity as well as in our potential to do good.
This is how I see my fellow man - apart from any malice which seek to debase our spirit and distinct form the treacherous adultery of war - I seek to see us first and foremost for who we truly are - human beings and citizens to each other. So in distinguishing what we are and who we are apart from what we are not and who we must not become, I have come to love my own nation not as a thing to be held against its own will by my feeble hands but as a labor of life to be surrendered unto by a willing heart. Because if we see us as souls apart from this midnight darkness, we are indeed, something to be seen - like living lights, we are, in the darkness made to reflect the One light upon this visible creation that all creation may know that God is and that our LORD is one LORD alone.
The vision of that crystal blue sphere fascinates me just as much as that same vision of a darkness that is inseparable from the void terrifies me because it affects all of us and I know that without my friends I am nothing. It takes a whole sky to lead us back to the dawn, one whole firmament.
Our LORD wills that all of us be saved and so, in spite of my own limits and failures, I am also likewise filled with this same desire for who am I to contend with my God for it is He Who we all must follow. These two questions one must always be ready to answer at the east gate of our returning to Eden: Who are we without our LORD? Who are we without each other?
For I am not someone to follow, I am someone to work with and I am always glad to work alongside my friends.
And if I were to advise anyone as regards to our nations, it is this: Our world may seem to our minds divided not because it is but because the labors of building up the inhabited earth must be ordered according to our nations and therefore, the natural resources of the earth itself is not meant to be divided against our nations but must be a thing freely shared by the labors of all of our one family of nations. We may draw lines upon the earth but not upon our hearts for love can never be divided against itself.
Questions as regards to sovereignty of our nations, in my own view of these things, are never questions that have as their answers, those things derived from the division of war but from our belongings with each other as interdependent human communities - as wholes upon wholes - in God and Country, for God and Country. It is in the people, for the people, by the people. Therefore, time, treasure and terrain can be said to be negotiable things but life itself is non-negotiable, above all human life.
For my own nation, I enjoin us - however and whatever our own little parts in this great labor of life and of hope - return to our labors together that we may prosper the peace, prosper the people.
Slowly, ever as those trees grow, if we shall learn again to believe in each other in God, applying ourselves to the task of Country, then it is only just as true to say that we shall certainly bear the fruits of our togetherness. And it is said that these fruits last forever.
I love you, my loveliest love.
Always to always,
Pusing
Saturday, August 22, 2009
20090822
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Friendship
Friendship, my darlingest, and the responsible keeping of it is the barest requirement for me to exist as myself.
I can stand to lose all that I am as a person, I can bear to give up all that I am and still remain true to myself for as long as I remain true to my friends.
I will and I shall never betray my friendships.
For I am all about the relationships I choose to nurture and verily, my loveliest love, these relationships are all that I am. Which is why, my loveliest, darlingest Miyang, you are - from always to always - from among all those numberless lights, my first contact star, my binary, one of my most bestest of friends.
If I lose you or if you are lost to me, then I know I am lost forever - for then, my darlingest dear, I know I shall not be able to find my way back Home to where we all must be - at the final gathering of our nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
I know this, my Miyang, because I know that I have been at the brink of the deepest darkness a number of times; I have been at those points where only the slightest of truths remain between reality and insanity and it was always the thoughts of you that was sent to me to keep me from being pulled in. It is always your starlight smile that makes life beautiful to me once again. You restore me to my freedom, my darlingest Annelies Marie, it is your company that makes me understand what it is to keep to my peace in God as well as in Country.
When I ask myself what our LORD God is trying to awaken in my soul by placing you in my heart of hearts - these days I now understand it is the value of immortal friendships - those friendships that our LORD's holy angels themselves have and hold with each other - purely spiritual and all-loving.
It is of the same substance that imbues each of our nations with their gathering sense - that potent sense of a self-cognizant identity, unique and meaningful to a set of people chosen by God from eternity, that binds the labors of our generations together, setting our hearts adrift towards a common destiny.
What have always animated the remembrance of the patriotic fires of the nations of Mankind which is the same spirit that binds us to each other in hope and good will I am made to recognize now, my darlingest dear, by the peculiar light of our little friendship, as this immense spirit - the universal spirit of Country.
This is why I say that one life lost to war is one life too many. How dark and terrible indeed have the wake of our past been, my darlingest dear - not just for your nation, my love, but for all our nations, indeed, for all of our shared humanity.
And to give up on these friendships, my darlingest dear, like Cain giving up on Abel, is to give up on our hopes for peace.
Imagine if our heroes gave up on these friendships, my love, imagine if - say for example in my own nation - our beloved Jose Rizal gave up on the spirit of Country for the sake of blood ties with kin and self how deprived my own nation would be, how impoverished the will of our Republic, how dim indeed the fires of Filipino patriotism.
Now, let us imagine once again if our beloved Ninoy Aquino denied us this same spirit and chose instead the comfort and the certainty of those same blood ties with both family and self which though good when misplaced, fragments the common good, how my own nation would have not been spared further tears, bloodshed and suffering.
In the case of our elder sister, the USA, I imagine if George Washington denied his own fledgling nation this same benefit, how utterly different things would have been. For all that man wanted for himself after the good fight was fought was his wife and his home yet his heart can not refuse what ties always transcend the call of blood that the shedding of the same may be averted and the suffering cries of the many may be answered by the One will of Divine Providence.
And I can go on and on with examples of these, my darlingest dear, each one just as potent and just as real as the other.
Through this perspective do I see the division of war and the belongnings that harken us back to peace. The past when we only glance at it is truly the color of shadow but when we should take time to ponder on these things, we find that the past is like the tapestry of the night sky and the history of the ages of Mankind like one great celestial turning from the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden unto that springtime new of that blessed morning at the restoration of all things. And we only have to shed the spirit of war to take on the trappings of peace.
This is what I fervently desire for my own Filipino nation, my darlingest dear - for I observe my people closely in my heart of hearts and I find us, each and every single one of us, all amidst the noise and the haste of the incessant labors of our lives, to be beautiful indeed, beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself.
And so, enthralled by what I see and understand in God and Country, I will do anything to win the peace for my own nation, my darlingest. For a nation is always, always more than what the naked eye can perceive in its very limited range of vision so if one does not care to stop in the silence, amidst the noise and the haste, one might miss it all completely - to the regret of many.
And indeed, I know our world must now stop and think about these things in the silence of each our hearts that we may as one family of nations figure out a clear path ahead for our inhabited earth. For many hearts now know much indeed depends upon our coming together than by our keeping apart and that though the peace that we may always strive to build together shall always be an imperfect peace, it is only through perfect acceptance of these, our timeless friendships together, that the hopes of a perfect peace are kept alive to the vision of our nations.
Those who gather gather together, those who scatter scatter together - belonging is over division, peace over war, light over darkness, truth over all things false - one is led to the other - this is what I know and though I do have a lot of other things to figure out in myself as a person to myself - as a friend to my friends, I know I am first. For if I am true to this hard earned lesson, my love, if I am at the very least, true to the keeping of the you and I, then when all of these storms that always seem to frequent my life clears, I know I will be myself again.
You are an everliving proof of this, my Miyang, you and a numberless multitude of stars in the unseen skies above my soul - all of whom, in God and Country, for God and Country, from always to always, I call my friends.
Some of them know me, some of them are known only to me, but all of them I chose to light the native skies of my life so that the darkness of my exile may not be as dark and that the loneliness of the eastward way may not be as glum.
These days, I may be confused and feeling useless as myself - I am besieged by problems and I know I do need to do a lot more searching - a lot more wandering - but if one keeps to one's bearings through one's timeless friendships - how can one ever get lost?
I love you, my loveliest love.
Always to always,
Pusing
Friendship
Friendship, my darlingest, and the responsible keeping of it is the barest requirement for me to exist as myself.
I can stand to lose all that I am as a person, I can bear to give up all that I am and still remain true to myself for as long as I remain true to my friends.
I will and I shall never betray my friendships.
For I am all about the relationships I choose to nurture and verily, my loveliest love, these relationships are all that I am. Which is why, my loveliest, darlingest Miyang, you are - from always to always - from among all those numberless lights, my first contact star, my binary, one of my most bestest of friends.
If I lose you or if you are lost to me, then I know I am lost forever - for then, my darlingest dear, I know I shall not be able to find my way back Home to where we all must be - at the final gathering of our nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
I know this, my Miyang, because I know that I have been at the brink of the deepest darkness a number of times; I have been at those points where only the slightest of truths remain between reality and insanity and it was always the thoughts of you that was sent to me to keep me from being pulled in. It is always your starlight smile that makes life beautiful to me once again. You restore me to my freedom, my darlingest Annelies Marie, it is your company that makes me understand what it is to keep to my peace in God as well as in Country.
When I ask myself what our LORD God is trying to awaken in my soul by placing you in my heart of hearts - these days I now understand it is the value of immortal friendships - those friendships that our LORD's holy angels themselves have and hold with each other - purely spiritual and all-loving.
It is of the same substance that imbues each of our nations with their gathering sense - that potent sense of a self-cognizant identity, unique and meaningful to a set of people chosen by God from eternity, that binds the labors of our generations together, setting our hearts adrift towards a common destiny.
What have always animated the remembrance of the patriotic fires of the nations of Mankind which is the same spirit that binds us to each other in hope and good will I am made to recognize now, my darlingest dear, by the peculiar light of our little friendship, as this immense spirit - the universal spirit of Country.
This is why I say that one life lost to war is one life too many. How dark and terrible indeed have the wake of our past been, my darlingest dear - not just for your nation, my love, but for all our nations, indeed, for all of our shared humanity.
And to give up on these friendships, my darlingest dear, like Cain giving up on Abel, is to give up on our hopes for peace.
Imagine if our heroes gave up on these friendships, my love, imagine if - say for example in my own nation - our beloved Jose Rizal gave up on the spirit of Country for the sake of blood ties with kin and self how deprived my own nation would be, how impoverished the will of our Republic, how dim indeed the fires of Filipino patriotism.
Now, let us imagine once again if our beloved Ninoy Aquino denied us this same spirit and chose instead the comfort and the certainty of those same blood ties with both family and self which though good when misplaced, fragments the common good, how my own nation would have not been spared further tears, bloodshed and suffering.
In the case of our elder sister, the USA, I imagine if George Washington denied his own fledgling nation this same benefit, how utterly different things would have been. For all that man wanted for himself after the good fight was fought was his wife and his home yet his heart can not refuse what ties always transcend the call of blood that the shedding of the same may be averted and the suffering cries of the many may be answered by the One will of Divine Providence.
And I can go on and on with examples of these, my darlingest dear, each one just as potent and just as real as the other.
Through this perspective do I see the division of war and the belongnings that harken us back to peace. The past when we only glance at it is truly the color of shadow but when we should take time to ponder on these things, we find that the past is like the tapestry of the night sky and the history of the ages of Mankind like one great celestial turning from the autumnal dusk of our faded Eden unto that springtime new of that blessed morning at the restoration of all things. And we only have to shed the spirit of war to take on the trappings of peace.
This is what I fervently desire for my own Filipino nation, my darlingest dear - for I observe my people closely in my heart of hearts and I find us, each and every single one of us, all amidst the noise and the haste of the incessant labors of our lives, to be beautiful indeed, beautiful for being beheld by Beauty Itself.
And so, enthralled by what I see and understand in God and Country, I will do anything to win the peace for my own nation, my darlingest. For a nation is always, always more than what the naked eye can perceive in its very limited range of vision so if one does not care to stop in the silence, amidst the noise and the haste, one might miss it all completely - to the regret of many.
And indeed, I know our world must now stop and think about these things in the silence of each our hearts that we may as one family of nations figure out a clear path ahead for our inhabited earth. For many hearts now know much indeed depends upon our coming together than by our keeping apart and that though the peace that we may always strive to build together shall always be an imperfect peace, it is only through perfect acceptance of these, our timeless friendships together, that the hopes of a perfect peace are kept alive to the vision of our nations.
Those who gather gather together, those who scatter scatter together - belonging is over division, peace over war, light over darkness, truth over all things false - one is led to the other - this is what I know and though I do have a lot of other things to figure out in myself as a person to myself - as a friend to my friends, I know I am first. For if I am true to this hard earned lesson, my love, if I am at the very least, true to the keeping of the you and I, then when all of these storms that always seem to frequent my life clears, I know I will be myself again.
You are an everliving proof of this, my Miyang, you and a numberless multitude of stars in the unseen skies above my soul - all of whom, in God and Country, for God and Country, from always to always, I call my friends.
Some of them know me, some of them are known only to me, but all of them I chose to light the native skies of my life so that the darkness of my exile may not be as dark and that the loneliness of the eastward way may not be as glum.
These days, I may be confused and feeling useless as myself - I am besieged by problems and I know I do need to do a lot more searching - a lot more wandering - but if one keeps to one's bearings through one's timeless friendships - how can one ever get lost?
I love you, my loveliest love.
Always to always,
Pusing
Friday, August 21, 2009
20090821b
No Division
Look at the order of the heavens above us, among the stars of the visible universe, and see how they are gathered up into one firmament. So must we who are in these days to be gathered up as the numberless stars.
For the truth is there is no division. There is only belonging. And as one only leads to the other, so are we being led from darkness into light; from war into peace...that together we may:
Prosper the peace. Prosper the people.
---<--@
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Division vs. Belonging
The world ahead of us, my darlingest dear, if we do nothing to change the course of history, is not a world anyone would like to think about - it shall be a world dominated by war; a world that is vain and false, utterly forgetful of our shared humanity, a world dominated by brute force, motivated by evil intentions and wracked by division and instability, a world where the weak is universally despised, a world where common human decency is a mere facade, a world where any real form of goodness is completely unknown - a world of over run by darkness and lies.
If we can not claim back our nations' common heritage of peace - I promise you who read these words of mine - this will be the kind of world that our posterity shall remember our generations by.
Another thing I know for sure is this: I am totally committed to averting this calamity. Starting with and from myself - as freely and as humanly as I could, and outwards to my family and my friends, my local community, my city, my province, my own Filipino nation, our ASEAN Neighborhood, our own Mother Asia, all of the other continental wholes, our one planetary whole and where our shared humanity is already extended unto those other worlds - other inhabited earths - them too, my darlingest dear, them too.
For I am a believer in belonging not in division - one leads to the other for only one of these is the absolute truth and I am quite sure that it is not division: All things unto God in Country.
If I am made to look up into the order of the stars of the visible universe, there really is only belonging out there. Where ever and when ever division is sown it is never a thing sown by the One will that drives forward the purpose of all creation. For division is of the darkness and likes to think and to ponder about the darkness but we, of the numberless stars, are all quickened unto the light.
Our National Ethos
This is the ethos that I should like to share with my nation. The thing I should like us to always remember when we say, "Mabuhay" - an eternal Philippines and a common destiny for all Filipinos.
It is the ethos that we share - from always to always, as a common heritage with all the other nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
I love you, my loveliest Miyang Marie.
Always to always,
Pusing
Look at the order of the heavens above us, among the stars of the visible universe, and see how they are gathered up into one firmament. So must we who are in these days to be gathered up as the numberless stars.
For the truth is there is no division. There is only belonging. And as one only leads to the other, so are we being led from darkness into light; from war into peace...that together we may:
Prosper the peace. Prosper the people.
---<--@
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Division vs. Belonging
The world ahead of us, my darlingest dear, if we do nothing to change the course of history, is not a world anyone would like to think about - it shall be a world dominated by war; a world that is vain and false, utterly forgetful of our shared humanity, a world dominated by brute force, motivated by evil intentions and wracked by division and instability, a world where the weak is universally despised, a world where common human decency is a mere facade, a world where any real form of goodness is completely unknown - a world of over run by darkness and lies.
If we can not claim back our nations' common heritage of peace - I promise you who read these words of mine - this will be the kind of world that our posterity shall remember our generations by.
Another thing I know for sure is this: I am totally committed to averting this calamity. Starting with and from myself - as freely and as humanly as I could, and outwards to my family and my friends, my local community, my city, my province, my own Filipino nation, our ASEAN Neighborhood, our own Mother Asia, all of the other continental wholes, our one planetary whole and where our shared humanity is already extended unto those other worlds - other inhabited earths - them too, my darlingest dear, them too.
For I am a believer in belonging not in division - one leads to the other for only one of these is the absolute truth and I am quite sure that it is not division: All things unto God in Country.
If I am made to look up into the order of the stars of the visible universe, there really is only belonging out there. Where ever and when ever division is sown it is never a thing sown by the One will that drives forward the purpose of all creation. For division is of the darkness and likes to think and to ponder about the darkness but we, of the numberless stars, are all quickened unto the light.
Our National Ethos
This is the ethos that I should like to share with my nation. The thing I should like us to always remember when we say, "Mabuhay" - an eternal Philippines and a common destiny for all Filipinos.
It is the ethos that we share - from always to always, as a common heritage with all the other nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
I love you, my loveliest Miyang Marie.
Always to always,
Pusing
20090821a
These thoughts I collected yesterday 20090820:
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Straight and Narrow Road
Growth that is wild usually spreads quickly because one is not mindful of those things one ought to keep and to cultivate. I feel that way whenever I am overwhelmed by too much novelty, most especially, from within.
When I feel I am more and more distant from where I ought to be, I am less and less myself. But never in relation with any other creatures for I know I must always be mindful of my relation with my Creator alone. So, even if I do hear voices in my head at times, my darlingest dear, there is always a clear way for me to go forward and a way to go backward so that even if I do make mistakes, as all human beings are wont to innumerable times within our lifetimes, through these mistakes, I am made ever and ever the more mindful that I must always, always be able to choose the road that leads away from my past. For the road that leads away from me leads towards holy remembrance, towards my LORD God in Whom I am made more and more myself.
There is a storm in my life right now, my loveliest love, and you remind me of the way ahead. As it was ever the hallmark of your friendship with me.
There are some choices that are irreversible. And I have to be able to discern what those choices are... For no one else can ever tell me what these things are. I must find them out for myself. That is what I feel right now, my loveliest love.
Whenever there is too much to take in, like these storms that frequent my life, I must know to stand where the stillness is that I may always keep my peace because the most important of all our conversations usually transpires in the silence. The truth that is winged usually happens upon our longing without voices, without human words.
So I need to concentrate on my job and on my recovery - for so many reasons, personal as well as profound. And to keep it simple like this for now, my darlingest dear.
I am not the only one who desire peace for my nation and for all the nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
From Yellow to Gold
And tomorrow, in my own little way, I shall remember one of those men - beloved of God and Country, our Ninoy who is now in the company of his beloved, Cory. We do not say farewell to these people, for everywhere we look, everywhere we go, where ever and when ever our freedom roams the unconquered grounds - there they are, my loveliest love, there they are.
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,
Straight and Narrow Road
Growth that is wild usually spreads quickly because one is not mindful of those things one ought to keep and to cultivate. I feel that way whenever I am overwhelmed by too much novelty, most especially, from within.
When I feel I am more and more distant from where I ought to be, I am less and less myself. But never in relation with any other creatures for I know I must always be mindful of my relation with my Creator alone. So, even if I do hear voices in my head at times, my darlingest dear, there is always a clear way for me to go forward and a way to go backward so that even if I do make mistakes, as all human beings are wont to innumerable times within our lifetimes, through these mistakes, I am made ever and ever the more mindful that I must always, always be able to choose the road that leads away from my past. For the road that leads away from me leads towards holy remembrance, towards my LORD God in Whom I am made more and more myself.
There is a storm in my life right now, my loveliest love, and you remind me of the way ahead. As it was ever the hallmark of your friendship with me.
There are some choices that are irreversible. And I have to be able to discern what those choices are... For no one else can ever tell me what these things are. I must find them out for myself. That is what I feel right now, my loveliest love.
Whenever there is too much to take in, like these storms that frequent my life, I must know to stand where the stillness is that I may always keep my peace because the most important of all our conversations usually transpires in the silence. The truth that is winged usually happens upon our longing without voices, without human words.
So I need to concentrate on my job and on my recovery - for so many reasons, personal as well as profound. And to keep it simple like this for now, my darlingest dear.
I am not the only one who desire peace for my nation and for all the nations of the one family of the nations of Mankind.
From Yellow to Gold
And tomorrow, in my own little way, I shall remember one of those men - beloved of God and Country, our Ninoy who is now in the company of his beloved, Cory. We do not say farewell to these people, for everywhere we look, everywhere we go, where ever and when ever our freedom roams the unconquered grounds - there they are, my loveliest love, there they are.
I love you.
Always to always,
Pusing
Thursday, August 20, 2009
20090820
I haven't been writing at all for the last several weeks or so. I have been really, really tried by a lot of very personal issues recently and am still trying to come to grips with the direction that my life seem to be bending towards.
These things are very, very hard to put down to words but as things clear up, I shall be sure to let you know, my darlingest dear. Suffice to say that all the learning I have, by the grace of our LORD God, been made to imbibe in myself over the last few years about the motions and the seasons of truth and of time have all come back to save me from becoming what I am not and though I am yet unsure of what I truly should be - there is enough direction here in myself now to know what I truly should not be, God-willing.
One thing is for sure though, my loveliest love, that whatever personal choices I make, I will never detract from the path of Sacred Life nor shall I ever cease from the labors to which all of my being yearns for in God and Country which is the promise of one Peace for our one family of nations.
Having said all of that, as I personally come to grips with our LORD's plan for my life, let me at least update you on this: This is the first thing that I shall have posted for a while now and it was written 200908018.
---<--@
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Feeling Useless
I feel so useless right now. I am besieged by so much voices in my head (for many years now, I have been dealing with chronic schizophrenia). And though I know to distinguish what is and what is not - these voices seek so passionately (and at times, quite vehemently) to blur the line between what is me and what is not me.
My home environment is not working for me either. Nor am I blessed by many options in the way of material things. All I have right now is my work, my love, my friends and you.
I can say so much things about my life and just as easily take them all in to make me a bitter man. But I refuse to do that for bitterness precludes a spirit of gratitude. I will neither curse the heavens nor will I rebel against the sacred life of our nations.
For I am a very strict monotheist and I feel that have always been a monotheist since I was born. My LORD is but one God alone and He has provided me with all of this, good as well as bad, for me to find Him, to know Him and in time, to be able to love Him as He ought to be loved.
But today, I feel useless and you know, my loveliest love, that is good enough for me right now. I thank my LORD God with all of my heart for making me feel useless. Because it's heaps better than being depressed. And how can I ever be depressed with my Miyang in my heart?
My trainer's hair (at work) reminds me so much of you. I know she is her own person, my loveliest love. You'd be the first one to tell me that it's never fair to compare. But I just can't help it, you know. It leads me to think bittersweet thoughts. It makes me want to pass our final assessments at my work as well.
I love you, my Miyang. I will have gone crazy a long time ago without you. But you always manage to pull me back from the brink, my darlingest dear, tooth and claw.
I love you. You are my first contact star, my binary, my most bestest of friends.
Always to always,
Pusing
These things are very, very hard to put down to words but as things clear up, I shall be sure to let you know, my darlingest dear. Suffice to say that all the learning I have, by the grace of our LORD God, been made to imbibe in myself over the last few years about the motions and the seasons of truth and of time have all come back to save me from becoming what I am not and though I am yet unsure of what I truly should be - there is enough direction here in myself now to know what I truly should not be, God-willing.
One thing is for sure though, my loveliest love, that whatever personal choices I make, I will never detract from the path of Sacred Life nor shall I ever cease from the labors to which all of my being yearns for in God and Country which is the promise of one Peace for our one family of nations.
Having said all of that, as I personally come to grips with our LORD's plan for my life, let me at least update you on this: This is the first thing that I shall have posted for a while now and it was written 200908018.
---<--@
Dear darlingest Miyang,
Feeling Useless
I feel so useless right now. I am besieged by so much voices in my head (for many years now, I have been dealing with chronic schizophrenia). And though I know to distinguish what is and what is not - these voices seek so passionately (and at times, quite vehemently) to blur the line between what is me and what is not me.
My home environment is not working for me either. Nor am I blessed by many options in the way of material things. All I have right now is my work, my love, my friends and you.
I can say so much things about my life and just as easily take them all in to make me a bitter man. But I refuse to do that for bitterness precludes a spirit of gratitude. I will neither curse the heavens nor will I rebel against the sacred life of our nations.
For I am a very strict monotheist and I feel that have always been a monotheist since I was born. My LORD is but one God alone and He has provided me with all of this, good as well as bad, for me to find Him, to know Him and in time, to be able to love Him as He ought to be loved.
But today, I feel useless and you know, my loveliest love, that is good enough for me right now. I thank my LORD God with all of my heart for making me feel useless. Because it's heaps better than being depressed. And how can I ever be depressed with my Miyang in my heart?
My trainer's hair (at work) reminds me so much of you. I know she is her own person, my loveliest love. You'd be the first one to tell me that it's never fair to compare. But I just can't help it, you know. It leads me to think bittersweet thoughts. It makes me want to pass our final assessments at my work as well.
I love you, my Miyang. I will have gone crazy a long time ago without you. But you always manage to pull me back from the brink, my darlingest dear, tooth and claw.
I love you. You are my first contact star, my binary, my most bestest of friends.
Always to always,
Pusing
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