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December 24, 2021

Merry Christmas Eve to all! Good Morning Digital Neighbors & Friends! Happy Friday Refugees, Phamily and Triggeratti! Hey there Early Birds, Later Dayers, Dawn Patrol, Day Walkers and Fascinating People! Oh, I have forgotten you Beautiful Bigots😉 or Conversants and Lurkers!

Over on Triggernometry I have been posting Christmas Far Side's. Day 10 of A Christmas Far Side 🎅 If you aren't celebrating it or acknowledging it, it is 1 day until the 25th. Life goes on, I hope you get a present. 🎁 OFF WE GO!!! The Daily Far Side, day 10! 🎄🎅🎁

Continued prayers for @ffoster & @KonstantinKisin and their recovery.

To all my Local's friends - the best gifts we share are not all the things under the tree. I imagine we all know that, but materialism is an easy sell and a seductive trap. Things can be very comforting, and missing all the essential things is destitution after all, but chances are if you visiting here destitution is not in your foreseeable future. You may have struggles and economic worries, but real poverty was at a historic low prior to the Covid-saga.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/19/decline-of-global-extreme-poverty-continues-but-has-slowed-world-bank

The gifts that really matter are the virtues and attitudes of the heart & mind that we share with others. Thank you to so many of the members of these various communities for the gifts of self they have shared since my joining here. There is so much humanity present in the communities. Nobody is perfect, we all have our struggles and darker inclinations, but the drama of other social medias seems to be absent for the most part. Perhaps there are Local's communities were that old tech drama of trolls and emotional vampires still abound, but I somehow doubt it.

@DaveRubin willingness to interview anyone so many years ago was one of the main points of attraction to me. That he often had as sense of humor was a bonus. @BridgetPhetasy @ffoster & @KonstantinKisin all followed along the same path in varying degrees. The Creators are great, but some of them barely interact with their communities, and others are much more present. The ones just mentioned grace us often with their presence, posts and comments in the community. I appreciate their humor and thoughtfulness, it is a great combination for gathering like minded souls. The people attracted to their gatherings on Local's are a very real gift to me. People of humor, passion, culture, politics and varied hobbies and pastimes dominate the communities. I have learned more about different musicians, different facets of history and science that might otherwise just slip past me. So many have shared their passion for cooking, pets, exercise, reading and varied windows into life. There even seems to be a good balance of vulnerability when people have their trials, I haven't seen too much over-sharing that can often become a poison in communities when some have nothing but pain, sorrow and "poor me" to share with no foreseeable change in attitude. God bless them, they are often people who need others but suffer from self-sabotaging behavior that seems to only perpetuate their condition. Perhaps they are among us, but unlike other communities they have gotten the help they need or found the people that can befriend them and help transform their story. Life can be so difficult and lonely for more than we might imagine, sometime a simple word of compassion and expression of kindness can be a real day changer.

Sure there is the occasional obsessive self-promoter or slightly abrasive clod in these communities, but once muted you never need to worry about them again. They get to be them, you get to be you, and never your paths shall cross for the drama that is so typical among the mentally and socially ill seated behind their glow-screens.

Merry Christmas Creators & Supporters! Merry Christmas to you members too, but then again all you can do is like or ignore it.

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Voltaire's birthday 11-21-1694 - A brief essay by Steve Weidenkopf

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 ...

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2026 Teams Talk @ Padre's

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. 

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Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday to all you fine souls across the internet! I had a wonderful weekend celebrating Mass with my parish family up the hill at St. Anthony’s and visiting with some friends from my last assignment. I am tremendously blessed. While I don’t know the name of every parishioner at Sunday Mass, I do know the 50 to 60 who come to weekday Mass and about one-third to one-half of those who come on Sunday. Names are so much better than “the person in pew 14” or “the guy with a mole on the left of his forehead.” Know what I mean?

At the heart of my ministry is the person of Jesus Christ. Knowing His name, calling upon His name, and being grounded in His name compels me as much as possible to know the names of my flock. My inspiration was Fr. Charlie Burgoon, my last pastor as an associate priest. While I was only with him for three years before becoming a pastor myself, his pastoral care inspired me to be more personal in my ministry—without creating ...

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Garden of the Beloved - read by Lady Clare - Chapter 10
The Beautiful

 

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.”

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Garden of the Beloved - read by Lady Clare - Chapter 9
The Comforting of the Disciple

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.

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Garden of the Beloved - Read by Lady Clare
Chapters 8 (Which I I forgot to post one for Independence Day Weekend!)
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