Good Morning Digital Neighbors at Rubin Report, Phetasy & Padre's! Good Morning Friends, Refugees & Phamily! Happy Tuesday Dawn Patrol and Early Birds, Conversants and Lurkers! The Triggeratti, Fascinating People and Joyful Bigots of Triggernometry miss out on this post, they will get the Daily Far Side. That 3 post a day thing makes sense in the really large communities, but the caring is sharing notification drives me nuts from time to time. Happy Tuesday my friends!
Another poem from our little book of Gratitude Prayers, Poems and Prose for everyday Thankfulness. Today's little poem reminds me more of waiting for the bus on chilly autumn and wintery mornings. I never had the experience of picking up children at the end of the day, but I can appreciate the joy of having them back home at the end of the school day. I am thankful that my public education was not a damaged as the current system seems to be. I have immense empathy for parents wanting to educate their children without having them agenda-ized by the radicals in education with CRT, The Gender-Blender & other Woke-enstien indoctrination. I am thankful for the good teachers that still want to pass on the tools of learning and thinking, I know they are out there. I am thankful for parents who take primary interest in the education of their children by either homeschooling or being truly involved and vigilant in the education of their children. My parents were semi-vigilant, dinner time was school decompression time with questions from Mom & Dad about classwork and when homework became a thing, they often helped or were at least aware of what I was doing. far from perfect or attentive as parents needs to be now, but they did a good job in shepherding my learning.
This Ordinary World
At the bus stop waiting for our children
the women talk. I listen
to their voices babbling
letting the steady flow
of conversation wash over me and
join with the sound of the oriole
whistling in a nearby tree.
A breeze sighs through tree branches
stirring a symphony of leaf-song
rustling and caressing the air.
The bus soon appears
sounding a cha-cha-cha
on the black asphalt street.
All seems to come to a halt
as the bus screeches to a stop.
Then the bus doors open. Laughter and chatter
greet waiting parents
as children nosily descend
bust stairs.
Music fill the air -
songs of everyday life
in this ordinary world.
Sherri Waas Shunfenthal
More Joseph Christian Leyendecker artwork. For many years I thought he and Normal Rockwell were the same person, but I was educated by @Dr-Robot about the differences between the two even though their styles and subject matter were very similar.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
