Katuwa na ang Pasko ay maging karanasan sa bansang hindi sinilangan. Dito, may yelo(snow) at mamang pula ang terno. Sa atin(Pilipinas) may biko at tinderang di abaniko.Dito malamig ang paligid at at tahimik ang gabi, sa atin sa dami ng carolling, nakakabingi ang gabi at balewala ang lamig ng gabi.

Dito, english and batian, “Merrry Christmas” o kaya “Happy Holiday”, sa atin, medyo paloko “mah-li-gha-yang Pas-kow” tagalog ,pero stateside ang dating. Pero ang wala sila, dito, magkikita ang magkatipan ng ubod ng aga sa sambahan,hindi para sumamba, kundi pala para magtanan!!!

Yan ang Pasko sa atin, masaya,maraming katuwaan at minsan, may katabilan.. ngunit higit sa lahat puno ng pag-galang.

Ating kinikilala ang pag-sapit ng Anak ng Dios sa sang kataohan upang sagipin tayo sa ating abang kasalanan. Wika ng ating awit…”Tayo’y mangagsiawit dahil sa sanggol na dulot ng langit…” Ang sanggol na yan na isinilang sa sabsaban ay lumaki at nangaral ng pagsisisi at pagaamuki nang pagbabalik ng sansinukob sa kalooban ng DIOS. “magsipagsisi kayo sapagkat malapit na ang kaharian ng Dios (Mat 4:17) “Magsiparito kayo sa akin, kayo na kayong lahat na nangangapagal at nangabibigatang lubha at kayo’y aking papaghingahin…at masusumpungan ninyo ang kapahingahan ng inyong mga kaluluwa…”(MAtt 11:28-29).

Hindi nanatiling munting bata ang sanggol na yan. Siya ang Jesukristo na ating Panginoon at mananakop na nabayubay sa Krus ng kalbaryo, nalibing, at, nabuhay na muli upang pagkalooban tayo ng buhay nang kaligtasan at buhay na walang hanggan. Buhay, na sa piling niya ay walang katapusan.

Minsan lang siyang ipinanganak sa sanlubutan at hindi paulit-ulit na nagiging bata sa bawat taon! Minsan nang sumapit ang kapaskuhan at ang sa atin ngayo’y pagdiriwang ng naunang kapaskuhan.Ang Panginoon ay sumilang na, tayo ngayon ang isisilang na muli (Born Again) sa kanya kung tayo’y tutugon sa kanya sa pananampalataya. Na ang Panginoong Jesus, ay Anak ng Dios ,namatay sa Krus ng kalbaryo , nabuhay na muli mula sa mga patay,nakaupo sa kanang kamay ng Ama at muling babalik para kuhanin ang kanyang mga banal at pumasakanyang piling maypakaylan man.

Ang Pasko ay tunay na sumapit. Kung gano’n, ang Panginoong Jesus ay masusumpungan sa inyong puso. Kung wala pa, ikaw ay lkailangan na ipanganak sa kanya. Papaano? Kilalanin mong ikaw ay makasalanan. Kilalanin mong ang kamatayan ni Jesus sa krus ay para sa iyong kasalanan at iyong anyayahan ang Panginoong Jesus sa iyong puso bilang Panginoon at tagapagligtas ng iyong buhay. Idalangin mo ang mga bagay na ito na taimtim sa iyong puso…

“Panginoong Dios, akin pong kinikilala na akoy makasalanan. Aking pinagsisihan ang aking mga kasalanan. Akin pong kinikilala ang iyong pag-ibig sa tulad kong makasalanan, na ang inyong Anak na si Jesus ay namatay para sa aking mga sala. Akin po ngayong binubuksan ang aking buhay, ang aking puso at inaanyayahan ko ang iyong Anak na si Jesus bilang aking Panginoon at mananakop, Amen”

Sa oras na gawin mo yan, ang Cristo Jesus ay mananahan sa iyong buhay.Tunay na sumapit na sa iyo ang ganap na kapaskuhan. Ganyan ang pasko, ALL ABOUT HIM not about you. Hindi ang yelo,hindi ang mamang pula ang terno, hindi rin ang biko,hindi rin ang aleng nakaabaniko,lalong hindi ang magsing-irog na gabing tumakbo,ang paskoy, pagparito ng Cristo upng bigyan tayo ng kaligtasan sa impeyerno. Kaya…..hala …., kanta ” Tayo ay magsiawit………at kahit hindi pasko ay mag-awitan………

I love this new book titled The Culture- Wise Family by Ted Baehr and Pat Boone. This is one of the books we are reading for our church’s forthcoming Family Retreat on July 6-8. With the current series of devotional materials`I am sharing, I thought that the portion Mr. Baehr and Mr. Boone has written has enriching insight for all of us . Read on…I love the Fourth of July! Eleven times a year, Americans are asked to remember to fly the flag on days such as Armed Forces Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. But i ask you: On which day do you feel more compelled to fly Old Glory than the Fourth of July / I daresay none.

But beware ; we should not take this freedom for granted. There are some people who want to prevent us from reciting our glorious Pledge of Allegiance as those beautiful colors lap against our houses and to remove the words “under God” from that pledge. Only a few years ago such a notion would have been unthinkable. Not today. Now it is the subject of serious and heated debate. How have we come to this misguided moment in our nation’s history?

Thankfully, not tool ong ago the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a liberal lower court’s decree that would have given one Michael Newdow, an atheist and noncustodial parent of a nine-year-old daughter, a legal right to stop her school (and all school kids everywhere) from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Newdow had claimed that citing ‘under God” in the Pledge violated the Constitution’s ban upon the establishment of a national religion.

Mind you, the girl’s mother- who does have a custodial rights and who regularly attends church- has no issues with her little girl reciting the Pledge,including “under God”. For that matter, nearly 90% of all Americans, according to an AP poll, want “under God” to remain just as it is in our Pledge. So it’s clear: With the vacuous compliance of the Ninth Circuit Court, one selfish atheist is offended by two words in our Pledge of Allegiance, so he wants the rest of America to shut up! This just isn’t the way democracy works.

Mr. Newdow (and some of the the Ninth Circuit Court) keeps quoting the First Amendment as it Congress had somehow mandated the saying of the pledge and thereby “established religion,” ignoring the fact that it is the school board and the kids themselves who voluntarily choose to say it the way Americans have said the Pledge since 1954. As Alan Keyes brilliantly points out, there is no law respecting the establishment of religion, because the First Amendment itself expressly forbids it! Congress can’t make any laws about religion.

Atheism itself is a religion, a faith system built on the premise that there is no Gos- and one that can’t be proven. Theism,of any description, is based on the premise that there is a creator God- and the evidence abounds everywhere. All our founding fathers,including Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Monroe and Lincoln, acknowledged this. And every single one of the 50 states in America acknowledges God within the framework of their own state constitutions. Here are few:

ALASKA (1956): ” We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God…”

IDAHO (1899): “We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God…”

MASSACHUSETTS (1780) : “We…the people of Masschusetts,acknowledging…the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe…”

MISSOURI (1845): “We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe…”

SOUTH CAROLINA (1778): “We, the people of the State of South Carolina,grateful to God…”

Get the picture? Our founding fathers, the ones who wrote our Constitution and maintained our liberties, were never ashamed to acknowledge our dependance on God. In FACT THEY FOUGHT FOR THE RIGHT! So what are we doing? if embittered atheists like the late Madelyn Murray O’Hare and Michael Newdow have their way, we’ll not only lose “under God” in our Pledge of allegiance but school kids will also be forced to stop memorizing Lincoln’s Gettysberg Address, which ends with the famous “this nation, under God, shall not perish from the earth.” And that’s not all; we’ll have to remove “endowed by the creator” from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

Will we stand for this , fellow Americans? Or shall we just meekly lie down and let a few impose their will on us? Nobody makes Mr. Newdow,or even his nine year old daughter, say anything they don’t want to say. Shall we let him prohibit us?

Ref: The Culture- Wise family . pp63-65

It’s disheartening but true!The clashes are in COURTS and CLASSROOMS. Two crucial places where law is interpreted and applies and where the next generation comes out. Both will give shape and substance to the kind of thinking and believing they posses and will endorse… by interpretation of law and by Creator-less education.

It’s amazing and confounding at the same time that The National Archives, the repository of this nation’s most important documents, upon walking into the building, you’ll see an image of the TEN COMMANDMENTS that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. A silent but undenying influence to formation of our system of laws today.A muted presence borne by history , its meaning, frozen by times !

But let us go to some of its valuable documents stored. Example, the Declaration of Independence. the Founding Fathers believed that our rights as human beings come from God,not from the king or the state. It contains four references to God: as LAWMAKER ( “the laws of nature and nature’s God”) ;as CREATOR (”endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”) ; as SUPREME JUDGE (”the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions”); and as PROTECTOR (”the protection of Divine Providence”)

Certainly, of course, the Constitution of the United States starts with these words: “We the people” expressing the consistent belief that each person’s fundamental rights come from God and barring the idea that states or government were sources of freedom and liberty.

The Bill of Rights or the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution states on the first amendment that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the exercise thereof.” Again, an acknowledgment of Creator- God. The fact that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison,two of the principal authors of the First Amendment (also our third and fourth presidents) both attended church services in the Capitol building signify the coverage of this amendment…the observance of religion in both private and public spaces. During Jefferson’s presidency, church services were also held in the Treasury building and the Supreme Court

The National Archives may not be a battlefield like the courts and schools today, but I strongly felt that the documents it contains,primarily,The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are indestructible proofs of the conviction of the Founding Fathers to forge a nation “under God”. Benjamin Franklin says it all “God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice,is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid ?”

Where is God in America? Hey, He is “in” but not “of” the National Archives documents.

How about in the prayer life of our “fathers”?

When the Constitutional Convention was hopelessly deadlocked in 1787, Benjamin Franklin, considered to be the least religious among the delegates then , turned the situation around by saying this reminder, “In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger,we had DAILY prayers in this room for DIVINE protection. Our prayers, Sir, were HEARD, and they were graciously ANSWERED (emphases mine). All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. And have we now forgotten this powerful Friend ? Or , do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?”

Franklin continued, “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: ‘that God GOVERNS (emphasis mine)in the affairs of man.’ And if a sparrow canot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.”

During the Revolutionary War American soldiers endured hunger and a critical shortage of clothes and blankets during the bitter winter at Volley Forge. Yet the men were patient and uncomplaining. How was such loyalty and hope kept alive? The answer was uncovered by those who discovered George Washington on his knees in the woods, his cheeks wet with tears as he prayed.

In 1863, during the Civil war, the Senate asked President Lincoln to designate a national day of fasting,humiliation and prayer. Lincoln’s proclamation haunts us today, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven, but we have forgotten God, intoxicated with unbroken success,we became self-sufficient, too proud to pray to the God that made us!” Alas! How easily we have forgotten!

Just few of the many examples we can get from our “fathers” recorded deeds. Just too profound to ignore. The depth of trust and confidence in God is rock solid. No iota of doubt nor wavering. Their anchor of faith holds on to the ROCK…which is GOD ALMIGHTY.

And so we ask, why all the fuzz with the phrase “under God” in our current Pledge ? Again, let me retreat to the early accounts written about the prime shapers and movers of this nation

On July 2, 1776 as the Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia to declare independence, George Washington was gathering his troops on Long Island to meet the British in battle. Washington wrote in the general order to his men that day:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or  slaves. The fate of unborn millions will now depend,UNDER GOD,on the courage and conduct of this army.”

Lincoln likewise echoed the same belief:

“It is for us the living,rather,to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they have gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, UNDER GOD, shall have a new birth of freedom.”

In prayers and major declared thoughts,God has been the inspiration of these leaders. Gingrich said that like Washington before him, Lincoln understood that America’s new birth of freedom would require that the nation seek the source of its liberties in the same place it had prior to the Civil War, UNDER GOD.

Where is God in America? In the hearts and minds and prayers and works of our “fathers”.

Dr. Michael Newdow, who continues to fight in court to outlaw the phrase “under God”, told the New York Times that he intended to “ferret out all insidious uses of religion in daily life”. This by the way is no indle threat. He meant it. While his case brought up in the Supreme Court did not result in the kind if decisions he likes, he nontheless “won” a similar lawsuit at the federal district court level and is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

A far cry from him, the Founding Fathers, from the very birth of the United States, publicly acknowledged and invoked the assistance of the Almighty God as pivotal ang central to America’s birth and liberty for the infant nation.

We can read that George Washington, at his first inauguration on April 30, 1789, “put his right hand on the Bible…after taking the oath) adding…’so help me God’. He then bent forward and kissed the Bible before him”. In his remarks he said:

“It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that ALMIGHTY BEING who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instruments employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge… No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the INVISIBLE HAND which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.”

You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.

Seven months later on October 3, 1789, in his Thanksgiving Proclamation, he said, “It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”

No ! No thanks to Dr. Newdow! Even if some people of this nation doesn’t want any trace of God’s existancein this nation,the feeling of strong conviction about God even then, has been very strong. Published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville states, “I do not know whether ALL americans have a sincere faith in their religion, for who can read the human heart ? but I am certain that they hold it to be indespensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society. ”

But, we may argue, America has changed significantly and is a very different nation today. Justice O’Connor reflected this thought in her earlier decision cited that the phrase “under God” was adopted in 1954 when “our national religious diversity was neither as robust nor as well recognized as it is now” Be as it may, the faith of this nation has been recorded from its infancy. Its not a waste of time to look back if merely for the sake of historical documentation. As trivial as it may sound, yet there is no argument that early on, our national leaders expressed their belief, trust, and confidence in one Almighty God, neatly embedded on their speeches.

Editors Note: Where is God in America? Part I can be found here.