Good Morning Friends and Digital Neighbors!! Hey there Phamily, Triggeratti & Refugees! Happy Sunday Early Birds, Dawn Patrol and Fascinating People! Welcome Back Joyful Bigots, Conversants and Lurkers!
More O Antiphon & Messianic goodness for a Sunday morning. 😊 For you less religious types out there and non-Jesus folks, I'll try my best not to bore you or try to sound too imposing of my own beliefs. Not really my vibe, but these days approaching Christmas tend to much more focused on faith.
Root of Jesse - In short it is a declaration of God's fidelity to His promises. Not a promise to make everything right in the here & now, but rather a promise to remember His promise to King David about a future and faithful descendant to rule with justice & righteousness. Christians say that is Jesus, our Jewish brothers and sister not so much, and many more just treat the whole Jesus story is an interesting meh.
Following up yesterday's thoughts about authority, one has to wonder about the nature of promises from anyone in authority. Most of us experience such promises as laughable. There is campaign season when promises are made, and the rest of the time when they are for the most part ignored or compromised. It is difficult to not to be entirely doubtful and cynical about those in the political world being nothing manipulative liars incapable of even understanding their own hypocrisy. I think many of us find it too burdensome to dwell on the world of politics for long without wrestling with thoughts of frustration or despair. Laughter helps insulate one, but does not change the reality. One ought to be mindful, but not consumed by our concerns of the political world. It is hard to balance attentiveness that affords us some degree of preparedness or getting sucked into the mire of politics being the endorsed secular religion. Everything becomes politicized. And a humble reminder from our Elitist Overlords, they are calling the shots and you are taking them.
But surprises can happen, and to have a system that allows for that without tons of bullets and blood is hopeful. Bloodless change and reform is much more preferable to the standard "new world" being born on a huge amount of carnage. Anyone promising you a new world built on the deaths of countless others (those Not us Peeps as it were) is never worth believing or following. The Not us Peeps in a volatile world of violence is ever changing and insiders can become outsiders and sacrifices without a thought on the march to "paradise".
Well that took a darker turn than I was expecting on a Sunday morning.🤔 On a lighter note, I hope the people in your real life, the elbow people among you, are people of trust and promise. Trustful souls make all the difference. They don't have to be perfect, none are, but there is a ready trust that can be given and shared that make all the difference in the world. It can make up for all the failed moments of promise and trust in the past. Good, real people of promise can create some of the most amazing and beautiful chapters in our life and can provide a much needed shelter from the storm. I hope you have people of promise in your life and you in turn are able to be one to others. Happy Sunday my friends & neighbors.
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.
The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
The Comforting of the Disciple
Now the Beloved often came into the Garden both because of the great joy He had in the Garden and because of the great love He bore the Lover and the Disciple. Often He talked with the Lover, but the Disciple because he was not yet perfected in Love could neither hear nor see the Beloved, though he often felt a strange joy, he did not know why. Therefore he was sorrowful, for it seemed to him that on account of his sins he would never find the Beloved. So weeping he came to the Lover and said, “Sir, I know that I am a very sinful man and I much fear that though I search all my life yet on account of my sins I shall never find the Beloved.”
In reply the Lover smiled gently and said, “My son, when you first came into the Garden do you remember what sort of day it was?”
“Yes,” said the Disciple, “I remember it. It was dark and gloomy as if no sunlight ever entered the Garden.”
“When you began to strip off your rich robes,” the Lover asked, “what happened to the day?”
“It seemed,” said the Disciple, “as if the sun had suddenly broken through the clouds and the whole Garden shone with glorious and celestial light: such light as shines daily in the Garden.”
The Lover replied, “Know that the Beloved Himself is the light of the Garden, so that when you began searching for the Beloved even then you found Him, for how can any know the desire to search for the Beloved if He had not already without his knowing revealed Himself to him.”
So the Disciple was greatly comforted by knowing that although he could not see or hear Him he had already found the Beloved, and he labored the more joyously to do the service of the Beloved.
