20100901

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Citizenship with Fidelity

I've been thinking some things through, my Anne. It seems to me that this blog might come across as confusing to some people, my darling. Because now I am also writing for my Philippines as well.

This used to be a private conversation, you know. This explains the reason why people, most of all those people who I care about might be confused about it all.

And I can't blame them - there are things that we share that were just never meant to be shared with other people. Therefore, I think that it would be better if this should become a private conversation once again, my Miyang.

We can not afford confusion. For clarity's sake, I shall have to use another blog to continue with the conversation that I should now maintain with my nation as a nation distinct among a family of nations towards the common goals that we all should share as one family of nations.

Some people might think it odd but you keep me sane, my Anne. I need you. There are thoughts that are so oppressive to me that if not for the grace of God provided through you and all of my other inspirations - all you stars of the skies above my soul - I would have gone over the edge a long, long time ago.

I am at peace with your spirit, my Miyang, because you love me the way that I am. You love me not the way I am supposed to be to you but the way I am so that even though the eyes of the world might perceive us to be different, we are exactly the same.

Too, I love you the way that you are, my darlingest Annelies Marie. And I would not change a thing about you. You and your little life on earth taught me many important lessons in life, you know. And now you keep me company in my heart as a guiding light - my first contact star, my binary - that leads me back when the darkness seem deep, back to sanity, back to reason, from star to star, back to God.

And for this, my Anne, God loves us both and so we are sustained in our togetherness by the one Source of all true belongings. Thus, I can not have any more or any less love for you than what I already have. It seems that I have loved you from always to always.

For the LORD is a God of right relationships, my love - our God is one LORD alone but He is not a solitary God but as a King rules all things, seen and unseen, without division. And God has chosen to strengthen our nations, my love, for the winter that is coming to this world - a time of shedding leaves but leaves shed not some much for winter's sake but for the spring.

That is to explain in a nutshell how our friendship works - for those who are seeking to know - it is a friendship that is like that of the angels. And because I have other friendships like these, my darling, I have a responsibility to bear with them as well... like you bear with me, my Anne.

Therefore, I am beginning another blog - Citizenship with Fidelity - and this shall be my primary weblog from now on.

I shall keep working on our One Song Meow and My Recovery First Journal.

All to my All as well as our old Planet Annelies, I shall use as a reference.

---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100831

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Old Defiant

Something's missing, my love, from my Philippines. Something vital.

Who knows her, my love?

These days, everybody seems to be living for themselves alone. It seems no one remembers her, my Anne. By this, she is grieved and therefore, draws further and further away into isolation.

For the spirit of Country, my love, is a spirit of self-belonging. It is a self-cognizant, collective sense of self. And the Republic form is a guardian to a people orphaned by war.

Thus, if the people are divided in their hearts against each other, they are scattered. And the people are scattered because of those distant and faded hearts; hearts that seem to no longer recognize the spirit of this Republic; hearts that have come to accept the rule of war.

Hence, the spirit of Country is diluted. And when there is no substance left in our remembrance, when there is no peace left to abide in our belonging, when there is no truth left to empower our will of Country, we shall cease to exist as a nation.

But while our history still fills the hunger in our souls, while there is yet a common longing for better days burning in our hearts, while there is yet those who remember and believe, while there is yet even a few who are brave and true, by the grace of Almighty God, war will never have us.

Truly, my nation, this is not a very good time for the spirit of war. For this is exactly why the colors of our own Country is called Old Defiant.

We have a choice. Let it mean something.

Let us defy division, let us defy corruption, let us defy poverty, let us defy evil and prosper, my fellow Filipino compatriots - together this time.

Let us defend where we must and leave all else to the invulnerable, omnipotent defense of the LORD, our God.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas. God bless us all.

---<--@

20100830

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Good morningest, my sweet darlingest Miyang.

I'm writing two letters today, my love. One for PNoy and one for the people of Hong Kong. Much of what I've written here with you as regards to the Quirino Grandstand Hostage Crisis were directed to my nation hitherto.

I'm putting these two letters down here, my Miyang, and then I am posting them on to my facebook account as well as to PNoy's and also to the We Pray For The Victims Of Quirino Grandstand Hostage Taking facebook account.

Letter to PNoy

Dear President Noy,

Peace be with you.

2009 ushered in a new season under heaven. It is a season of peace and the preservation of our nations. In particular, Mr. President, I am writing to you about our nation: This is our time.

I believe that the best Country in the world is one that works. And we are trying to make our Country better as best we can - together this time: Nation, State, and Common Market.

All good and worthwhile endeavors of Country is a labor of the generations. It is a work of peace and this peace is evidenced in the life and the prosperity of her people - her nation.

It takes time and sacrifice. You yourself know this, sir. And we've only just begun.

The recent hostage-taking incident at the Quirino Grandstand is very unfortunate. But if we are vigilant about the things we need to do to obtain from God what He is presenting to the eyes of our faith, in terms of bettering ourselves as a Country, I am quite convinced that this crisis may only serve to temper our hopes and deepen our commitment to both God and Country.

I am with you, sir - all the way.

I shall be in communication with you from now on. And I shall try to write us something about this on a weekly basis, Mr. President - for your own personal consideration as well as our encouragement (@ Citizenship with Fidelity).

Sincerely,

=^.^=

Letter to the People of Hong Kong

To the people of Hong Kong,

Peace be upon you.

My people - the Filipino people - grieve with you. Know that I grieve with you. As a citizen of my nation, I hoped with your hopes, and prayed with your prayers during last Monday's hostage-taking incident. I trusted with my one Filipino nation and held our collective breath hoping for a favorable resolution to the crisis.

Of paramount personal concern to me and to most of my Filipino compatriots during the entire incident were the lives of your own compatriots.

As tourists, I appreciate what contribution they represent to our struggling economy; as guests, I appreciate what interest they have shown for my Country; as human beings, I appreciate what their presence have through their personal interactions with my own people contributed towards stimulating our culture by enriching our sense of diversity and shared civilization.

And I still appreciate all of this even now. They are to me as the Biblical strangers written in the Bible - those who God especially requires as being deserving of the special care and protection of my nation.

Thus, it was in this spirit that I held my breath with my nation and hoped with your hopes and prayed with your prayers and trusted - one to another - that the lives of those innocents would be spared.

And as things went awry, I was left with a loss for words. For I can neither stop believing out of sheer frustration in my own endeavor of Country nor condone the manifest criminality of what had just transpired before my eyes on live television.

I had to really struggle to obtain for myself intelligent answers to the questions that this incident had left for many of us to answer - in your nation, in mine and in many other nations. These are questions still that is yet to be satisfied with answers in the coming weeks and months - answers that both justice and humanity requires.

And so I appeal to each and every one of you. I humbly ask for your patience and understanding knowing that we - the Filipino people - are one with you in your grief and your quest for justice.

Let us allow our governments to conduct their investigations into the matter. But my appeal is to you, the people of Hong Kong.

There is a lot of blind anger out there. Justice is blind but not in this way. For justice must also require that we undertake to consciously preserve the good will that exists between our peoples. Let us not give evil another victory on this account and let patience be the rule over anger.

Let us think it through as I have thought (and am still thinking) it through. And then let us pray about our hopes together as I do.

I especially appeal for the safety and well-being of our long-suffering Filipino overseas workers in your own territory. Please understand that they too want a better Philippines for ourselves and our generations and are a vital part of our collective efforts toward national recovery. They are just as much victims of this tragedy as you and I.

Again, my deepest condolences go out to all of the families and friends of those innocents whose lives and promise were so abruptly taken from their midst and to those victims who have now been scarred for life, my peace and to all the people of Hong Kong, the peace of my own people - the Filipino people.

God be with us all.

Sincerely,

=^.^=

There you go, my love.

---<--@

Good Journalism

What is good journalism?

This is another topic that bears important relevance in the wake of this tragic incident, my love. I've tackled this with you before, my Miyang. I just need to take another look at our old writings and re-think them through before I re-write them here, my darlingest, with you.

It would indeed be good to put them down here so we could at least add our two cents worth to the necessary conversation about the matter.

But that's for later, my Anne.

---<--@

For now, I just need to proofread and post these letters and then after lunch, I'm going to take a walk at the local mall with an old friend from work and perhaps go to the arcade, relax a little.

I love you so much.

=^.^=

"Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk."

- Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

20100829

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Good afternoon, my darling Anne.

Confusion

There is a very confusing war of words that is being presently fought by angry people over last Monday's hostage-taking incident, my love.

People are reacting to the hurt and the fear that we all feel as human beings in the aftermath of a tragedy. The only different thing about this is that we are not just reacting as people, we are also reacting as nations.

And in this much greater and more abiding sense of human belonging, we are becoming confused. Because we have never in time felt this sense of an emergent global awareness before.

Where each our responsible states used to exclusively represent our collective values as distinct national communities, we now have found that we as nations have come to possess the technological and spiritual capacity to discover for ourselves what sets us apart and perhaps even more importantly, what joins us together.

It is through the lens of this perspective that I view what is now happening between the peoples of my own national community, the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora, and that of the Chinese national community in Hong Kong and across the width and breadth of China: We are communicating.

And in remembrance of those eight innocent Chinese lives - human lives - that were so abruptly taken away from our midst, I implore those of us who have ears to hear that we make good on these hopes and try to truly discover for ourselves what values our two nations hold in common with each other more than to forget what goodness there is for the sake of passing things as anger and hatred.

For all evil things are passing things - as all lineages of honorable religion will attest - but what goodness for us has wrought will stand the test of time.

Goodness will not only endure in the end, it shall prevail. So let us be ever reminded of this, O my nation, that our spirits may be roused to both courage and good cheer as we enter together into another working week.

Let us each be vigilant of heart that we may see through all of this confusion and follow where we must all be led -

If we shall give war an inch,

my beloved friends and constant companions,

if we shall willingly allow

a segment of our shared humanity

to become vulnerable to evil things,

if we freely and recklessly abandon

our Lord's poor,

in the weak, the defenseless,

the displaced, the dispossessed,

the widow, the stranger, the orphan,

we shall indeed soon find

that war and the ambition of war

has again overtaken us all

with the final defeat which is its curse.

For what war does to one, war does to all.

So let our one peace forever remain, one whole one.

- Salutation #4

Having said all of this, my fellow Filipino compatriots, let us not forget to pray for our leadership in the responsible state as well, especially PNoy, his Vice-President and the Executive Branch, most especially Secretary de Lima of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Secretary Robredo of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and Secratary Romulo of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

---<--@

My Analysis

The only favorable outcome in a hostage-taking scenario is the rescue of the hostage/s.

Because of this, it is of a paramount operational concern to the incident commander that the separation, both physical and mental, of the hostage-taker/s and the hostage/s be effected as safely and as decisively as it is immediately possible utilizing all national resources at his or her disposal.

This was not clearly manifest in my own limited personal review of the operations that were conducted on behalf of the hostages and their families and friends last Monday.

I especially appreciate the interest that these tourists from Hong Kong have shown for our Country, they should never have had to undergo all that pain and loss. I will not forget them.

Justice requires that a thorough investigation be conducted on behalf of all those who have been affected by this crime. And there is a great deal many people who are affected by it.

---<--@

Today is National Heroes' Day here in the Philippines, my love - "Araw ng mga Bayani".

O Soldier of the Peace!

Noble defender of Country

You are life preserving life itself

For what is Country but life

Know you not why you respond

When duty calls you to battle?

Vague at times may reason be

Especially amidst the desolation of war

And the darkness of war's attendant evils

But forget not what you love

And forget not why you live

And none shall forget you if you fall

For in Country is your longevity

Life itself shall be your resting place

And God will forever love you

His Peace shall forever honor you

For the time you have given others

More time for building,

More time for sowing,

More time for loving,

More time for hoping,

For kinder days to come.

- The Last Fading Away

---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100825

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

A Day of Mourning

PNoy declared today as a day of mourning, my love. By this, the President invites all us Filipinos to stand in solidarity with the grieving people of Hong Kong and across China.

Indeed, we mourn with them, my Anne, for the sheer senselessness of it all.

Too, I have listened and am still listening to the silence within myself, telling me that the waters of our common humanity has been disturbed. And people - everyday people - are speaking up in my own nation, my loveliest, because they can feel it too.

Even before PNoy issued his declaration, I have heard from ordinary citizens how shocked and saddened they were at the events that two days ago now had unfolded in front of the Quirino Grandstand near Luneta Park - the place where our generations (of this nation) inherited the hopes of many of our martyrs, above all, our Dr. Rizal.

And as the ripples of this event travel afar, affecting those other nations, above all Hong Kong and across China, in various ways the question is being asked by many of us - "why?"

There are those questions we can as nations answer, my love. And indeed, there is much work to be done here to make sure that the hopes of those who were taken from us are preserved from evil. But there are also those questions that may only find their natural solace in the Presence of the LORD, the one Sovereign of all nations. The latter is the reason why we are all invited by the grace of Divine Providence to spend some quiet time this day.

And the best way for those Catholics among our citizenry to respond to this call is to go to Holy Mass. We shall then pray together as one community of Christ for the requisite strength to do with God and with each other all the necessary things on behalf of those innocents and improve on the way we conduct ourselves as a Country, a work of His Hands.

---<--@

Tree of Remembrance

You know, that chestnut tree of yours, my loveliest Miyang, fell over a couple of days ago. In spite of efforts to preserve it, my darling, it was toppled by a storm.

The tree was simply too old, my love, but the timeless substance of what it now represents - if we are vigilant at heart and if we ponder about it here within - may only be multiplied by this act of God.

That old chestnut tree represents (yes, in present tense) your hope for better things, you know. And because this is a hope that is shared by all of humanity, it has a definite resonance that can not be toppled by any temporal storm. So why not plant a new one, my darling, nurture it through the years, and let the generations (of our one family of nations) rally themselves in time through it?

Let us plant a lineage of these trees to stretch to the shores of forever and let our allied generations be fostered by it.

After all, remembrance is forever. Remembrance is what holds vigil over the sheltering wings of our peace as nations. If the tree speaks of remembrance, it can never be toppled.

---<--@

Pretty Cats Rule!

Finally, thank you so much for throwing us a curve ball, Billy Baldwin. Congratulations to you, Ate Venus, for placing within the top 5 at the Miss Universe 2010 pageant in Las Vegas, mabuhay.

Pretty cats rule! That's why I love my Miyang.

You know, there may be people who are prone to misunderstanding how this friendship I share with you works, my darlingest Annelies Marie, but that's only because they're not putting first things first. I myself at one point in my life had had to ask God how must I love you, my Anne Frank.

Then again, there may be those who will never understand, and that's fine. That doesn't change things for me, for us: I love my Miyang. PERIOD.

---<--@

I love you so much.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100824

Dear darling Annelies Marie,

Hello, my darling Anne.

Quirino Grandstand Hostage Crisis

There was a hostage crisis in Manila yesterday. The whole nation was gripped by it from 9AM till about 8:30PM. I'm still quite affected by this incident, my love. I found out about it at around 3PM and watched the situation unfold on live TV right on through to its conclusion.

You know, my darlingest, there might be a lot of things to be said and done about this but right now I am at a loss for words. I've been trying to write something since this morning. To be sure, we have to deal with the aftermath of this tragedy - together as a nation and also together with our one family of nations.

But the time for grieving is not yet past. Now is a time for silence.

My deepest sympathies go out to the families of the victims and to those victims who are still affected by the violence of it all. Peace be unto each and everyone of you.

And to those who have gone to God, Godspeed.

---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

This does not represent the ideals of my people.

20100823

Dear darling Annelies Marie,

Taxation

Taxation is an inevitability. Every endeavor of Country require it. From taxes, the temporal life of the responsible state is preserved and the necessary governance of the nation assured.

Taxation is an integral part of the national dialogue. Hence, no true citizen can risk to remain ignorant about this fact of our national life. Because without taxation, none may claim the right of representation in the Republic forums.

From this act begins each and every broader participation in the national life. Therefore, our individual willingness to obtain from God the national success must also be adequately matched with the responsible paying of the legally required taxes.

Taxation is a burden. It is a complicated matter to be sure, my love. And because it is so, there are whole agencies of government specifically dedicated to make sure that this necessary burden of taxation is one that is equitably shared by all.

For the burden of taxation is a responsibility undertaken by the nation as a whole. However, the sharing of this burden is the duty of every individual citizen.

Too, taxation is a debt. Payment of this temporal debt is a civic responsibility that we owe to each other across all of our generations. Because nothing on this earth of ours can ever become built without this necessary participation.

If we are to help build a better Philippines, it is vital that each of us become well acquainted with the actual work of helping to build a better Country. And there is no better place to start - as burdensome as it may seem for us today - than in how we pay our taxes.

What is praiseworthy in the Philippines, my love, as a perennial undertaking of Country is this - prosperity and life - both in their measures, abundant and lasting.

Therefore, if we are to become responsible for this hope, one to another, we must know that in the final accounting of things, taxes indeed is as necessary to our human condition as death. For we are each intended by purposes much, much greater than ourselves to build and then to be re-built.

PNoy knows this. Now, you know this as well, O my beloved nation. By our giving, we shall set ourselves free. This is true for always. And this is true with taxes as well.

So say you with me, shame on tax cheats!

And then report them here: http://perangbayan.com/

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

- hope taking wing

20100817

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Hello, my darling purrrincess.

A Failure of Obedience

I finished reading A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt last week, my love. Like I said, my darling, it was a very good read.

The postscript clarified that it was a trial report which means it was primarily concerned with Adolf Eichmann, the individual, and his acts construed to be criminal acts not only be the laws of the victorious powers but also by Israeli law.

Indeed, it was a trial report, my love. But all throughout the book itself, within that report of the Eichmann trial was a disturbing trend that necessarily elicited from the consciences of sound-hearted people a certain vein of thinking that Hannah Arendt referred to as the Banality of Evil. And this "banality of evil" was the challenge she posited clearly in the epilogue of the book to the juridical sciences of the nations to attempt to apprehend it and to the moral sciences of common humanity to attempt to understand it.

The dilemma that existed at the time of the trial, because of the enormity of the problem that existed in the background of the events even at that time (1961-62), was that it was easy to overlook the fact that it's central concern is one individual and one individual only.

I myself am personally inclined to frame Eichmann's actions during those years that led up to the Final Solution to be criminal in as much as he has willingly and quite decidedly allowed himself to be gradually dragged into that complete moral collapse that characterized the criminal policy of the Nazi state. Because without this manifestly evil collusion, he would have not been able to carry out any of those acts for which he was being tried by the court in Jerusalem.

It was a failure of obedience, my Anne. In this, he is most certainly guilty beyond reasonable doubt. He allowed his loyalty to become so badly misplaced that he had allowed himself to become a willing instrument in the suffering, torture and murder of millions, yours included, my Miyang. For this he was hanged. And that was that, my Anne, so far as the trial of Adolf Eichmann went.

But as for the question of the banality of evil, our world is still coming to grips with it. My own Country in December of last year, my darling, passed R.A. (Republic Act) 9851 defining and penalizing crimes against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity.

The calling of these times itself being a calling to peace require that we, each of us who are called to understand the calling of the times, all come to grips with it. But not because of there is so much evil but because there is so much good. From star to star, one whole sky...

Obedience is not a blindness, it is a loving - a loving obedience. And the heart of humanity was never made to love the evil in evil things.

Right now, along with my usual reading materials - the Scriptures above all, I am re-reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu translated by Ralph D. Sawyer.

---<--@

Here in the Philippines, my love, we are busy trying to better each ourselves as a nation and also as an undertaking of Country, a Republic to be sure.

One, Undivided Work

Any undertaking of Country, my darling, is a human endeavor. And if it were a sports car, it would have it's own unique model number.

It's make, of course, is of God. For the only reason we are busying ourselves with the labors of building up our inhabited earth is because the LORD, our God, has commanded it to be so.

It is a vessel meant to take our nation somewhere in time and space but more importantly, above and beyond it. And there are really only two ways to go, one is an ascendant path, a hard mountain road, as it were, that disappears into the light of our hopes together and the other a descendant one, an easy retreat down into the unremitting darkness of exile time.

Now, the engine is what peace each our honorable religions produce in each of ourselves as citizens to each other. Because unity is an aspect of our liberty as nations. And so here in the Philippines, our main engine is the Roman Catholic Church, my Mother Church. But that is not to say that my own religion is the exclusive force for positive social change here in my own Country, my love, for we share this work of building with another great religion of our world, Islam, and also with other Christian denominations. Because the fruit of all honorable religion is peace - above all the three, great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, of which I am a part.

So what is the Philippines, my love? It is a human undertaking of Country; a Republic with a soul of submission and a heart of peace. We are a human nation striving to be Godly, kindly and fair.

While it seems easy to just not care about this Country, my darling, I believe that we Filipinos know that we are all present here today not because of easy things, my Anne. We are here to build, build, build and we are going to do this because it is hard and worth doing.

We want a better Philippines for ourselves as human beings and citizens to each other - men, women and children - past, present and future. And I know a lot of Filipinos agree with me on this, because not all Filipinos are corrupt. In fact, I think there are more Filipinos who are not corrupt than there are who are truly and irreconcilably corrupt.

My people, my love, is a patient and a passionate people. Too, we are also an obedient folk. And I think that neither our obedience nor our love will either be misplaced or miscarried at this time. For I believe with conviction of faith that God has deigned to bless our democratic choices during the last elections because we were honest and sincere with our hopes together as a nation. I have a firm belief in our present leadership, my love - all of them - above all, our PNoy.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

I personally think PNoy is a true blue Pinoy and that he has his heart set not just on the things of this world - a very endearing characteristic that I did not know about till after the elections.

I did not vote for him. I was not able to vote during the last elections. I did register with Comelec (Commission on Elections) but the circumstances of my confinement at the center prevented me from casting my ballot at the time. And even if I were able to vote, my Anne, I would not have voted for him. But that's not because I was divided in my heart against him or against any of our candidates for that matter, my love. Generally speaking, I do not vote because I disagree, I vote because I agree.

Besides, I never believed that I was going to vote to be right about my own personal choice at the cost of others, I was voting to exercise my right as a free citizen of this Republic. Therefore, at the end of the election process, as it is my duty to responsibly exercise my citizenship, I along with everybody had to concede to the choice of the quorum of the people.

And as I learned about our 15th President, as I listened to him speak during his inauguration, at his first SONA, and in the news, I understood how right we, the people, were about our PNoy. I understood that he too has his own heart set not just on the things of this world. And so now that we have made our democratic choice as a nation, as the question becomes one of perseverance, my darling, I can truly say to you today that he has most certainly gained my fullest confidence and support.

Political Graffiti

Senator Chiz Escudero recently filed a bill (2187) in the Senate, that seeks to criminalize the putting of politician's names on public projects.

Here in the Philippines, my love, it has become very commonplace to see these names on just about everything that the Republic owns, from schools to jails to passenger sheds to ambulances to trash cans and made from anything from paint to concrete to metal. And this, even if it were from a variety of motives, good or bad, is something I personally call political graffiti.

It is as if the Republic itself has ceased to become aware of its own longevity and that its life and vitality has become dependent on singular individuals. Because of this, our people are becoming used to building not with this longevity in their view and that matters very much, my love. For it has real effects on the way we live as well as the quality in which we are able to pursue this way of life - the Filipino way of life.

And this bill is something that PNoy supports.

I think it's about time, too. No more political graffiti! Way to go, Chiz, you are a citizen and a patriot. I too, hope and pray that this bill becomes law.

---<--@

I think mom and I are having dinner out.

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

...the brightness of thy Banner undiminished in triumph waves, the glory of thy stars and sun are lights that shall ne'er fade...

20100815

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Why?

I once asked God in prayer why can't He just make things all better for me, my love. I asked God why must I have to put up with all these seemingly persistent, never-ending frustrations and difficulties of my recovery. Why can't He make things better for me?

For recovery takes hard work, my Anne. It's not just about quitting drugs - that's really just the surface appearance of things. To the newbie recovering addict or to the uninitiated, it might seem like a very simple thing to ask an addict to make the choice to quit or to just continue on using. But recovery is deeper than it looks.

Recovery is initially all about making that big, life-defining choice to quit using. Because the first choice is the wrong choice and everything else is the choice of the addiction. This initial choice is almost always forced upon an addict when he or she "bottoms out".

But the real work of recovery begins, my darling, after that initial choice to quit using. Because what constitutes the real work of recovery is about making those little everyday decisions that allow me to uproot bad behavior and strengthen good ones; choices that seem invisible to the rest of the world.

Recovery both implicitly as well as explicitly requires that necessary exercise of virtue and the art of its grace. Because the essence of recovery is really all about re-learning to live my life aright once again - slowly but surely - without the use of drugs or the inclination to seek the false "high" of drugs.

And this takes hard work indeed, my Miyang - vigilant, anonymous work.

So I asked God one day, my love, and He replied to me - "my dearest child, if I take away your choices, then you would cease to be you, and it is you that I love and nothing else but."

Recovery is all about freedom, my darling. If God takes away that freedom, what's the point?

And it's not like I have no help in my recovery, my love. I just have to remain vigilant in my heart of hearts. I just have to know what and who I love above all. And that that's no longer drugs. As long as I am certain of this, my Anne, I know by the grace of God, I shall continue on recovering.

I have you, and that matters a heck of a lot to me.

---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

"My dreams came true

when I found you,

I found you,

my miracle...

If you could see what I see -
you’re the answer to my prayers.
And if you can feel
the tenderness I feel,
you would know
it would be clear
that angels brought me here."

Angels Brought Me Here - La Diva

20100810

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Good morning, my darling Miyang.

August is a really pretty month, my love. Its interior landscape in terms of liturgical reflection is very edifying. The feasts of the Transfiguration and the Assumption both fall within this month as well as the feast day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, my beloved patron. Also, today is the feast day of Saint Lawrence the deacon, another one of the principal Saints in my little life, my love.

Next month, on September 8, is birthday of our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of my heart and my Mother with Christ. These particular days are very important to me, my darling.

In terms of my recovery, these are those "safe" days that along with all our other special days, personal, liturgical or patriotic, help me to move my days along from hope to hope and strength to strength - from feast to feast, as my Holy Mother Church would put it. And everything here is centered, founded and finds their culmination, of course, in the celebration of the Mass that if we Christians were a breathing together form the beginning and the end of each breath.

Latria

For it is in Holy Mass that we are through Jesus Christ, as faithful and obedient children of the Father, constantly renewed by the Holy Spirit and constantly sent out by token of that same Spirit to renew the world around our selves, one would think that the Saints, above all the Holy Mother of God, who along with the Holy Angels are intimately entrusted also with each our spiritual welfare would encourage us - as far as it is freely possible for them - to come to this Holy Banquet and not just on Sundays.

One would think that all our Saints would, as God wills it, seek to add their voices to the chorale of the Angels that in the quiet of our hearts constantly invite each of us to come to this most excellent and most efficacious of prayers and join the whole community of the Church in assaulting the Throne of the LORD with much love and song.

But in the darkness, this is not always so - or at least it is made to appear that way, but not by any of those whose hearts are called to God. Some love the Saints not with the love of God but with the love of the self and this is sad. That they would rather believe in their own empty creations, be it made in the appearance of popular piety, than come with nothing but a calm sense of expectant joy to that great and happy Feast of their one and only Creator; to this celebration pregnant with wonder and hope; a commemoration of the greatest love of all.

Granted each of us are come to season in each our own time, but for each of us whose hearts are awakened to an abiding love of the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord, let us know - here and now - with conviction of faith in our hearts that from behind mere accidents of bread and wine, He peers at us and He sees our world so needful of His Love, His True Light: Like a great and eternal Star, Jesus Christ who is Emmanuel shines out to us in the Eucharist and in His Love He illuminates our need, the depths of it, because, O little flock, it is precisely this sense of a great and profound need that will fill us with the Bread of Angels and grant for our hearts that peace that this world could never even dream of giving us.

So banish the darkness, let us come to Mass! Let us work, work, work to understand it, know it, love it, and live it.

Later on today, I shall work on the revision of our Rosary of Hope the purpose of which is to bring into the realization of the Now, the needs that require us to be individually strong in the exercise of Christian charity.

---<--@

Hello, my Anne, I'm back. It's about 4:15 PM, my love -

Our Rosary of Hope

When I posted this prayer on All to my All, my darling, I was still desperately in the midst of my active addiction. I was in the thick of it. I was caught up in those cycles of insanity that all of us addicts suffer from; an all too familiar pain, my Miyang, that were it not for the pain that God in His mercy felt for me would have served to deaden me completely from the reality of my life.

For it was God who awoken in me, the need for my recovery; a process that was begun many years before that day I cried out to our Lady for help which is the day this prayer was conceived in my heart. Many months have passed, my love, and since when I posted that prayer I knew that there were still some things to be learned, that there will be new reflections gained from its exercise, I am now putting those things down for us.

The prayer itself has not changed, but I have.

They say, my love, that the Rosary has a body and soul. The body of the Rosary are its physical gestures - the posture that we take, the Signing of the Cross, the passing of the beads - and also the vocal prayers themselves. And these are like handrails that guide us forward in the prayer. They allow our hearts to venture out into the more vital aspect of the Rosary, its soul.

I would like to put emphasis on the soul of the prayer, my love, because it is here where the real work actually takes place which is to make ourselves accustomed to our own hope in relation to God's plan for each of us and also the hope of others in relation to God's plan for all of us together.

Because of the darkness, my darling, it is certain that there are false hopes out there. There is much despairing. But this prayer is proof against such things. Because through it we shall gain a confidence and a strength of understanding and heart to devote ourselves to those lineages of hope that lead to the glory of God in heaven which is on earth, peace among our nations and good will among all men and women of peace.

For those who are interested, here are some of my pointers with regards to the essential parts of the prayer -

1. Make the intention that you are going to pray this prayer. Be aware also that this is a prayer that we shall be saying with Mother Mary and Blessed Jacinta Marto.

2. The Sign of the Cross - It might be that this has become but a rote gesture. It is important to guard against making this an empty and mechanical gesture. This is a summary of all that we are to take into our hearts during the entire prayer. We must invite ourselves to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit by the Sign of the Cross. The vertical is our relationship of faith. The horizontal is our relationship of hope. This prayer concentrates on the horizontal relationship.

3. The Apostle's Creed - I have realized that I was not able to put this on my original post. This is included in the prayer, of course.

4. The first Our Father and first the three Hail Mary's - Let us meditate on the Blessed Trinity.

5. Glory Be - every Glory Be reminds us of the real terminus of all true hope which is the glory of God in heaven and on earth.

6. Our Father - every Our Father reminds us that it is in loving obedience that all good things in faith have their foundations.

7. Hail Mary - every Hail Mary reminds us of the common ascent of our hope from truth to truth and strength to strength.

7. The Five Meditations - the first meditation is the hope of the true self - God's plan for each of us, the second meditation is the hope of the family - the needs of our families, the third meditation is the hope of friends - the needs of our friends, the fourth meditation is the hope of the nation/s - the needs of our national community outward from the least to the greatest whole which is the planetary whole, the fifth meditation is the hope of our Holy Mother Church - the intentions of our Holy Father, the intentions of our Bishops, Priests, Religious and Lay Leaders, including the final hopes of the Church Suffering.

Every meditation is an ascent to the fulfillment of all human hopes in the Glory Be and should fill our faith with much trust and confidence in the LORD, our most beneficent God. In these meditations we shall try to understand with Mother Mary the depths of our needs and the needs of others that require us to be individually strong in the exercise of Christian charity for true self and others in God as true self.

It is an aspect of this prayer that we should be willing to take ownership of the hopes that we include and reflect upon in each meditation within our Rosary of Hope either exclusively, unbosoming our hearts with Mama Mary and Blessed Jacinta or in the context of the four mysteries of the regular Rosary. It is the central reason why we are working to bring them all forth into the Now of our hearts through this prayer, that we may help realize these hopes by bringing them out from our hearts into the everyday world around us. One will soon discover that there is much work to be done here, in prayer but more importantly in act.

8. Finally, as regards to this prayer, I prescribe that at the end of every meditation, we say with Blessed Jacinta Marto in our hearts -

God of my Heart:

O my Jesus, zealous for souls,
thirsting for the love of Mankind!

Come, be Thou the God of my heart
and accomplish in me Thy will of peace.

Try to see the Lord in others through this prayer. He thirsts for our love through others and by our coming to Him we invite Him into our hearts that He may by His Love give us the grace to accomplish in us what we must do for Him today.

We have always, as Catholics, relied on our Mother Mary for her intercession, now in this prayer we come with her - hopes in hand - in the actual moment as she intercedes for us so that we may eventually learn to also be like her and with her intercede for others and to do all of those works of peace set by God before our hands and our feet - willingly and with joy.

Peace, I salute you.

---<--@

Let us recall to mind the sword, Excalibur: The Paradox of Power is that power is ultimately an illusion. In the end, there really is only responsibility.

Let us pray for the victims of the worst flooding in the history of Pakistan.

And let us now get together, O my Filipino nation, to build a better place for us under the sun, something we could truly call our own, a Country uniquely our own, our home away from Home - a Republic with a soul of submission and a heart of peace, one that is better capable of attending to our own needs as one nation and of reaching out to assist those other nations in need, in our region, in our continent, and in our world, mabuhay.

IKAW AT AKO

Pilipinas, ano ito?
Ito ang lupain ng pangarap,
Bayang hinirang ng araw
sa puso nating lahat -
isang bayan, isang diwa
isang layunin, isang puso
isang kapatiran, isang gawa
isang umagang pangako sa atin
nang Diyos nating Maykapal,
at nag-iisang Kapayapaang namumuno
sa lahat ng mga Pilipino.

Pilipinas, ano ito?
Atin ito: Ating lahat,
noon pa man, dito sa Ngayon,
at sa kalahatan nang panahon -
dito sa lupa, sa ating karagatan,
at sa lawak ng mga kalangitan,
atin ito, ating lahat,
mga kapwa ko Pilipino -
kapwa kapatid nang pangako.

Pilipinas, ano ito?
Atin ito: Tayo ito - ikaw at ako,
ngayon at magpakailanman:
Bayang dakila, inang kandungan,
tahanan ng ating mga bayani -
puno nang kabutihang loob
at pananampalayaya sa Diyos.

Matamis ang magsilbi
sa malaya mong mga kalupunan.

(From 2009: Bagong Taon, Bagong Araw)
---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

Sakura

Beauty is fleeting
T'is like a stranger calling:
Do you remember?

20100809

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Good morning, my darling purrrincess.

A Report on the Banality of Evil

I've just about finished A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. And bless the LORD, my Miyang, for helping me to rediscover my love of reading.

It is, for me, a very good book to read. But my interest in the matter lies not in the disturbing nature of its particular discussion which is the attempted destruction of a people, my love, your Jewish people. My interest in the matter lies not in unveiling for myself the evil of those times alone.

The enormous evil that stood against you and millions like yourself, my Miyang, contains within itself a strength and a quality of temptation that sought those who are particularly vulnerable to its allure. And is a thing that still seeks.

But as I said before, my Anne, I took the time to read that book because of my interest in you and in innocents like yourself (Eva Beem, Rutka Laskier, etc.). For I am no longer fascinated by the evil in all evil things and the deceptive sense of hurt which binds those of us who are not aware of its cunning into those great and incessant cycles of pain and loss; I am no longer a child of the void.

Too, have I, by the grace of God, become aware of what is truly worth living, loving and fighting for in my little life. And I know I have become alive to these things, my love, not because I am - for what am I, my Anne? This is so because God is the LORD, my love, our God.

Because I am your friend, my darling, I have cause to be hurt by all of these. But because I am by Christ compelled to forgive, I am by God enabled to move forward - to let the past regret itself without me. But never without understanding, must one forget, my Anne, because they say that to forgive is to forget but the forgetting in our forgiving applies only to our hurt, it is by no means an excuse to remain comfortable in our ignorance. When I remember and I no longer remember the hurt, I have forgiven. But the lessons shall always remain.

And so I too, my darling, desire to render in my own heart, by the grace of God, the justice that is required. Because I love you. With the love of Christ, I will love you.

Indeed, there is evil in the world, my love. And so that this evil may be bound, the law exists. It exists because life is imperiled and serves no other cause than the cause of sacred life.

The first part of the law must deal with our human obligations to the LORD; that which binds us unto an eternal remembrance of our singular lineage; that which is first spiritual - sacred life. And that which proceeds from our eternal remembrance of the one Divine Truth is that which compels us unto a present remembrance of our common patrimony as nations; that which is peace - the peace that prospers (as opposed to the false peace offered by war).

Time exists for Man and this is so because Man exists for God. Hence, our returning to an Eden rebuilt as nations together this time (at a time, times and half-a-time) does not consist chiefly in any time spent in their years alone. If the intervening millennia have taught any of our nations anything at all it is that time itself is not a distance. For time is an account of the human heart. It is distant only to those of us with distant hearts. Time is neither a reason nor a season to forget.

However much evil there is that the LORD wills to confront us in any generation and at any age, as the one family of the nations of Mankind, it is in our timeless learning to reach out in freedom to the only other freedom that is continually reaching out to us in the midst of the darkness, the freedom of God, that shall avail for any of our nations the strength of each its sheltering peace.

Hence, individuals matter, my love. For the darkness exists but only as a contrast. If we forget this, we shall die to our remembrance of each other, past, present and future. If we allow this to happen, we shall consequently die to the eternal remembrance of the LORD.

For it is in the substance of our faith in God, that He is and that He is the LORD, one, peerless and eternal, that we are each continually led into the light and the realization of all human hopes in time - the very reason we exist as nations.

To bring further emphasis on the reality and the purpose of our nations which is to bless and to foster our human communities with each its sheltering peace, my love, we are now confronted by our collective sense of human history. The world is at a crisis - in more ways than one. Because the singular direction of the last 2000 years have only brought us deeper into a neglect of this basic fact and no more has this been more so in retrospect than in your own time, my love, my darlingest Annelies Marie.

And the human heart knows that if we continue on this course, into the deepening darkness, we shall only be met with greater catastrophe.

A crime against peace is a crime against this fundamental spirit of the order of our nations. It is therefore, only right to establish first an expression of what this order both accommodates and requires (as I have attempted to do so above) that one may then proceed to work to understand what the Nazi ideology labored to undo in order to subvert the very principle upon which rested the hopes of an entire nation; of how it worked to exploit the truth of the reality of those times to wage war against the peace of the nations of the earth, your nation, my Anne, included.

But let us move on to other things for now, my darling. It will not serve anyone well to dwell on these things and forget to live in the present. I am sure we shall revisit this in the coming weeks, but for now, I think I shall try to reconnect with some of my good friends in facebook and listen to some music while I'm at it.

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100804

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Good morningest, my darlingest purrrincess!

Our Time

The best way to do justice to the past is to make peace with the present.

Now is the time to stop living on our problems and begin working together toward solutions. To be able to do this, we must be able to build on agreements.

So let us make the way of our hearts clear. Let us cast off the spirit of division and break the rule of war from within ourselves. For peace has to start somewhere. Let us make that choice while it is still a choice. (Refer to Salutation #4)

These are indeed, exciting times. The new horizons of hope that is being presented to the eyes of our hearts are real. And each of us can feel it in our being and perceive it in our souls. For we are of those generations called to peace. This is our time.

These times are unprecedented, my darling. And this is something worth being aware about: We must not fail in our vigilance. Because the gravity of the last 2000 years will try to pull us back into itself. We must not falter in our remembrance. Lest war again overtake us. To the regret of all.

There is no time when the stars in the sky become all the more clearer than the night. But let us not fail to also remember that we are not the light. We are the darkness called to the light. We must work together the works of peace. That the light may become our portion. So let us work together the works of peace. That God may bring our generations forth into the new morning; ever as those kindred nations walking in humility before the LORD.

---<--@

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100802

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

The Institutional Good

During one of our weekday Masses at San Isidro Labrador Parish here in Las Pinas, I saw in the pew immediately in front of me, a little girl sitting beside her mother who I initially thought was tucking her arms underneath her blouse. It was curious of me, my love, for my instincts at first refused to believe that there might be a possibility that she actually had no arms.

That was what I thought until I realized during the course of the Mass when her mother had to do for her the triple sign of the Cross before the Gospel reading that the little girl actually had no arms; that it was most probably a congenital condition.

During Holy Communion, I saw our presiding priest who upon seeing that little girl with no arms proceeded to become affected by that same realization deeply enough to ask himself in the quiet of his own heart the question, "how can we help"? (The question of evil is a separate matter altogether in this instance and in that regard I offered prayers for father.)

It would have indeed been imprudent to have acted on impulse and out of sheer pity at that time. And were we not within the celebration of the Mass, it would have been easy to have done so, my Anne. Even a smile would have been awkward and possibly even badly received at that time. For she was neither asking for alms (she was with her own mother) nor was she in any apparent need of any human consolation, my darling (we were in Holy Mass).

What God was teaching my heart at that time, my love, is how to appreciate the institutional good - all of the LORD's own human causes (the pre-eminent one being the Church itself).

---<--@

A Debut to Remember

The DDB-EU TRC (the Dangerous Drugs Board-European Union Treatment and Rehabilitation Center - our center home or my "other" home) celebrated it's 18th year anniversary yesterday, my darlingest. The program proper was held at the Cathedral Shrine and Parish of the Good Shepherd at Fairview, Quezon City. It was a blast! Lots of good memories from over there, my love, indeed.

Here is an example of an institution actively entrusted with a mission and any institution that is entrusted by God and Country with a mission must also be intrinsically founded upon a human good; a need from which to begin that common ascent of hope towards the liberation of the truth. In this particular case, my love, that human good is that of recovery form active addiction (that of myself and all my brothers-in-recovery in our center home and in all other like institutions in the Philippines and around the world).

In this case, my darling, I am like that little girl, helped indirectly by the charity of individuals and directly by the good will of nations (in this particular case of the DDB-EU TRC, a partnership of the European Union and of my own Philippines). A fact which is never lost to me, of which I am very and profoundly grateful for, not just because I am actually helped by the institutional good that safeguards the character and animates the culture of the DDB-EU TRC institution but perhaps even more so, because I actually know I am helped by it.

By the way, I was asked to lead the opening prayers yesterday, my Miyang. Here's the words to the prayer I wrote for the occasion:

Dear LORD, our God, we want to thank You for gathering us here today to celebrate the 18th year anniversary of our DDB-EU TRC.

Father in heaven, bless us all here present. Allow us the grace to meaningfully celebrate with You and in You (through Jesus Christ, our Lord,) this wonderful occasion. May we each become (through Thy Holy Spirit) truly gifted with the realization of the good thing that the DDB-EU TRC institution and its mission represents in our lives and in our times.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be. AMEN.

---<--@

I'm still reading A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt, my darling. And have been thinking much about the evil of those times - you times, my darlingest Annelies Marie. I shall report about this here on our blog just as soon as I finish the whole book, my love. For I've some things to comment about on the matter.

What can one individual like you, my Miyang, do against such evil days? A lot actually.

I love you so much.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100727

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