Good Morning Friends and Digital Neighbors!! Hey there Phamily, Triggeratti & Refugees! Happy Monday Early Birds, Dawn Patrol and Fascinating People! Welcome Back Joyful Bigots, Conversants and Lurkers!
More O Antiphon & Messianic goodness for a Monday 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.
(Please note this is just a copied greeting from Sunday since I am something of a lazy@ss on Mondays. I promise more creativity tomorrow.) 😉
Keys have such symbolic value in life. As today's O Antiphon indicate they possess the power to open and lock, to grant or deny access and entrance. Given the keys to whatever was a sign of trust and honor. The symbolism of a key was something of a status symbol. For the Olds among us, which are many, being given a key to your home and finally achieving the keys to car were significant moments in life. Keys indicated the maturity to handle the responsibility that would accompany them. If you can't handle the responsibilities, you don't get to keep the keys. Society will forbid you access to driving if you have violated the commonly understood rules of the road. It will go further and if you fail to be a cooperative neighbor, you may face a day in court and trip to prison. That all depends on equal application of the law - and that seems to be something of an anomaly these days. Areas of unequal application are becoming exodus zones (Commiefornia) for areas that still understand something of the nature of social contracts of citizens and local government.
Keys have given way to passwords, same power and privileges. The granting of access into whatever is a matter of trust. If you are waiting to grant trust to someone perfect, you will live and die a solitary life in the waiting. Even the most trustworthy of souls, will have small infractions against trust, the question remains what are major infractions, violations and actions that cannot be reconciled.
Take today's namesake - David, adultery and murder are deal breakers for most of us in dealing with another person. They are reprehensible acts and violations against a person. Why in the sweet name of Buddha would David be seen as a good king of Israel? In the end, the Divine Popeye (I'ams who I'ams) puts a lot more stock in honesty and not hiding behind excuses. Love him or hate, believe he gets a pass because he was the king, in the end David came clean when called into account. Something of a rarity these days in the world of leadership. Blaming others for your choices doesn't sit well with the Burning Bush, ask the fruit pickers how well it worked.
Well enough for a Monday - I hope whatever keys you have been entrusted with in life you can handle with maturity, responsibility and honesty. Given that you won't handle such sacred gifts perfectly, be humble in your failures and avoid excuses and justifications, they never play as well as you think they will. To those individuals you have entrusted with keys, I pray they are worthy of your trust. So many have been injured by violations of trust that it really is an endemic reality in human nature. There is such need for real healing among so many.
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.
