Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Hey there all you free thinkers in the Phamily, among the Refugees and assembling as the Triggeratti! Happy Sunday Early Birds, Dawn Patrol, Conversants, Lurkers and all you Supporters, Members and Visitors to these great Local communities.
Went down a music rabbit hole last night and it continued this morning thanks to @eclecticRPT and @MinaH A few quotes and comments on music for a Sunday morning. Music is such a part of worship for many Christians, those who love and those who hate it. Some are in the Ancient Latin expression of liturgy, others enjoy the traditional vernacular hymns of the last few centuries and there are those who like various modern expressions of Christian music from the last few decades. There are identifiable camps and groups, even those who really don't care for much music at all. They don't mesh together very well, some Masses become known for certain expressions of music, I guess that is about as good as we can get for addressing those desires.
I think one of the challenges of keeping a healthy mindset is to balance your ingestion of political/cultural issues with other unrelated interest, it might be nature videos, history or anything that takes our attention away from the intrusive nature of the political/cultural battles in the current chapter of life. Music is one of my escapes and reprieves from the drumbeat of an increasing intrusive and dictatorial culture wars. Everyone should want to be informed, but not consumed.
It is easy to identify the Consumed, they are so deep in their mud of their tribe that can't see any good beyond their tribal aspirations and identification. The othering they engage in (and it can happen to any of us - othering makes critical thinking easier since that critical-questioning part is muted.) It can happen to anyone engaged in the cultural discussion when the discussion and its related issues are you only interest and passion. When the cultural wars become our only endeavor & interest I can't help but think we will suffer some form of emotional-mental contorting. I won't call it illness, but it is headed that way. Other forms of engagement help unknot the social-cultural twisting. I hope you have yours. I have faith, laughter and music up there in the top 10 list of things more worthy of time than overconsumption of the culture war issues.
It is good to be informed, it is burdensome at times and eye-opening when our predetermined assumption get knocked around by new information and must undergo refinement. It is dangerous to be among the Consumed, they are the latest mental virus among us that erodes individualism and personal liberty so that the greater WE may prosper. Once "those people" are gone/converted/compelled paradise is around the bend. There will always be a potential "those people", they are politically expedient after all. Perhaps even worse than the Consumed are the Distracted Oblivious who are legion and often unheard as they shelter in place in their avoidance of any cultural issues that will one day effect them. As long as there is bread & circus, they are fine. Only the denial of essentials, food, water, and Netflix/Smartphone may drive them from their dens in fearful rage. Alternatively they may just wait until the services are once again promised or provided. Hard tell, they are unengaged after all. Well off to the music quotes - I hope you have things that brighten your day and remind you of the goodness of being human. Three good quotes and one humorous one for your Sunday ingestion.
Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche
There's nothing like music to relieve the soul and uplift it. - Mickey Hart
You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works. - Van Morrison
Hell is full of musical amateurs. - George Bernard Shaw
Barn in Minot, North Dakota
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.
(See the first comment for the explanation of MOAR. It came up early in the morning chat.)
Good morning, digital neighbors! S.H.I.T - SURE HAPPY ITS THURSDAY! We had a radio personality say that every Thursday when he signed on to his program. It must have stuck for I still remember it to this day. Either way, welcome to a new day, and let's continue our visit with M. Scott Peck's collection of quotes.
Today's section on happiness deals with contentment. One of the things I pray for along with an ever deepening faith is to be reasonably content in my life and in my happenings. I don't want to be complacent, which is very similar to contentment in its origin but yields vastly different fruit. Complacency leads to boredom, which seems to be a major affliction in modern living, whereas contentment leads to gratitude and perspective. Well, it ought to if one is really trying to practice contentment, to take nothing for granted, to name your benefits and blessings, and to strive for growth of virtue...
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.”
