Good Morning Digital Neighbors & Friends! Happy Wednesday to all! Already midweek - they just pass too quickly anymore. Perhaps that is the phenomena of being on the other side of the hill. One of my Communion Calls, Ellen, fondly called Gram by everyone, said she only knew two days Monday and Saturday, she always thought there were days in between. Ellen was pushing her 90's and had a wonderful perspective on life. Visiting her was always a joy and almost always interesting. She loved baseball, hockey and talking about the past. She would fondly laugh that everything was behind her and only one thing was on her big list.
She made it to her early 90's living in the home of her marriage and all of her adult life long after her husband Vince passed and her daughter was on the grandma track. Gram was the last of the letter writers, I am sure I have a few tucked away in my shoe box of memorable letters that I look at whenever I am reassigned and wonder what is in the box. Ageing is on my mind, not sure why, but it is a pleasant thought for the most part. The reality of it may prove to be another thing. I do my best to appreciate every chapter that life has allowed me to live thus far. I try to accept where people are in their own chapters, a little time in their company reveals character, competency and overall perspective if there are conversations of consequence.
Gram wasn't sure where the world was headed, she thought the 1950's were the Golden years of life, but she didn't doomcast, she rolled with it. Gram had a lot to give in a life lived at home, a past that was rich and filled with stories of gratitude and sorrow, and a future filled with ballgames and hockey matches until it was time for her to say goodbye. I knew her from 2001 until 2011 between two different assignments.
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. - HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL
If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old. - JAMES A. GARFIELD
A man over ninety is a great comfort to all his elderly neighbors: he is a picket-guard at the extreme outpost: and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy must get by him before he can come near their camp. - OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR.
Winter Barn View - Potlatch, Idaho
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.
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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
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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.”
