Love of Purity

Love of purity

is the gain of chastity,

a freedom within.

Strength in modesty,

comes from a love deep within -

respecting others.

Chastity is this -

t'is a love, first and foremost,

a freedom within!

T'is a freedom - kind -

a return to innocence,

and right relations.

T'is a release - from -

the bondage of the body;

a joy in the soul.

T'is a release - sweet -

yet difficult, and God-filled;

severe is the test.

T'is a release - gained -

through prayer's battle, through faith,

by grace, and good effort.

T'is a release - from -

the horror of slavery

from sins to recoil.

It's fruits are sweetest

when love draws you the nearest

to God and heaven.

It is not prudish

sullen, awkward, or ugly.

It is beautiful.

---<--@

Said the Angel -

Stripely

Grandma always said -

you are an angel from God.

And it's true, you are.

So be good, Leksi.

Remember what angels do,

they shine like the stars!

We miss you,

we love you!

---<--@

It's Leksi!

Erika Ching

When I think of you -

I think of what we've been through;

a wringer, it was!

I want you to know...

Erks, through it all - I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

Walk always

in Beauty.

---<--@

Beauty seem woeful and static when associated only with externals. Its meaning can never be confined to the merely physical.

For beauty is the virtue of those whose art is life.

Indeed, there is something true about the beautiful that escapes time and place...

So trust in God, Erika, and walk always in Beauty.

Eriza Albie

Sister, you're a star -

leading my soul overhead,

away from darkness.

I want to rise for

so long, I want to be free.

And you remind me -

I can choose

the best part.

---<--@

Albrechtita, sister dear, you're a brave soul.

And brave souls are those who save other souls

and even teach them to fly.

Thanks!

Sisters

Two sweet Southern belles,
spanning two generations,
the Y and the Z.

Dakota and Elle,
may you each grow near, always,
as your hearts grow out.

Two sisters,
always friends.
---<--@

The generation gap is a myth; a kind of urban legend. Our liberty as nations do not include this quite recent distortion; it is an unmistakably foreign intrusion into our belongings together.

The peace of our generations is the guarantee of the completeness of each other.

Knowing Mom

She's not the best mom

but she's not the worst either.

She's just my mother.

Problems seem many

but she tries her best for me.

I love my mother.

Who's perfect

anyway?

---<--@

This is not my mother. But sometimes I think its darn close.

The beginning of the commandments that regulate human relationships begin within the family institution specifically between mother, father and child (as individual/s).

The Fourth Commandment

What family God picks for you,

our most precious starshine,

you should never question.

Especially your parents

whether by birth or by adoption.

For the wisdom He hath invested

in the souls He had committed

to your nurture, protection, and care

from before you were born.

Believe you must, my beloved,

that God will never desire for you

what is not suitable for your own good.

So love the LORD, trust in Him -

and through this obtain to the truth

that thou shall love and honor thy God,

by remaining true to thy family.

Honor thy father and thy mother -

whom God Himself have provided you -

and you shall prosper.

---<--@

Remember also, dear starshine, that God makes up for what is lacking in our family by our friends.

Each of our friends
who become part of us
by spiritual bonds of truth
are the family that we learn to choose
in the course of each our lives
to complete what our LORD
has begun for us
in our families.

Excerpted from On Friendship

Love Your Family

Honor thy parents,
and listen to their counsel,
obeying the truth.

Love your family,
they are thy friends that God chose,
apart from thy kith.

Life begins
and ends here.
---<--@

Family is Family is Family

Our close family ties is a peculiar strength of our Filipino national identity.

In our society, the extended family plays an indispensable role in the raising of the generations.

The fact that we have grown presently accustomed to calling total strangers "ate" or "kuya" (a recent social adaptation) is a manifestation of this familial bent in the Filipino soul.

Truly, we are a nation passionate for identity, belonging, and most of all, family.

It is a strength we also share with our kindred nations, arrayed within our regional belongings (Asia South East), as well as with those others, equally beloved to all, that comprise our one, great continental belonging (Asia).

Now, notice that our characteristic close family ties is a strength and not a weakness.

BUT it is an intended strength because it is one that we must ever always choose to align harmoniously with the other wholes of human community -

from the individual
- being the person for whom -
the familial whole exists to shelter
and whose unique and unrepeatable spirit
the presence of the family serves to
fortify, guard and fulfill -

to the nations
that exist (for each other) as greater shelters
serving to bring various families
and diverse tribes together
in the spirit and peace
of one, single human community,
binding all into one freedom
- one lineage of victory -
making possible the building
of the inhabited earth.

- selah -

Indeed,
the family is the window
from which one learns about
the value of human relationships
- both vertical and horizontal -
and the singular doorway
that eventually permits all to enter
into the larger, nobler wholes
of human community.
---<--@

The Family

The human fam'ly
is an institute of life,
raised for this purpose.

It is communion -
one man, one woman, one Love -
professed in union.

From this grace,
nations live.
---<--@

Tree of Remembrance

My life touching yours -

living, belonging, reaching,

growing together.

Your life touching mine -

living, belonging, reaching,

growing together.

Forever.

We belong.

---<--@

Excerpted from Planet Annelies, 20100825 -

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.

Update: Apparently, a number of new saplings were taken from the old tree, my darling, and was a thing thought of independent of our suggestion here (which only reinforces our point).

---<--@

The Best Things

The best things in life

are often things we can't see

that the heart perceives.

The best things in life

are often things we can't hear

that our heart receives.

The best things

are not things.

---<--@

Boredom

Boredom is boring

without the quiet company

of fam'ly and friends!

So be with people.

Or go find something to do.

But remember this -

Boredom are like clouds.

They come in spells. But your mind,

it is like the sky.

Don't focus

on boredom.

---<--@

Father in Heaven, I take everything by Your hand.

I offer you this boredom. For I do not know what to do with it. Help me turn it into patience. AMEN.

Broken Home

"Mom or dad?" They asked.

Does it have to be a choice?

It's not fair, I know.

Those who have the least

to say are often those who

have the most to lose.

Its the kids

who suffer.

---<--@

If home is where the heart is, where is the heart in a broken home?

What nurtures the souls of the young in a place with no love left?

When courage gives way to convenience in any married relationship - many, many dreams die.