Happy Wednesday Digital Neighbors! Good Morning friends! More on communication from Ageless Wisdom: A Treasury of Quotes to Motivate & Inspire.
There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one. - Baltasar Gracian The Art of Worldly Wisdom
When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion. - Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Teach thy tongue to say "I do not know". - The Talmud
On a trip to Israel in 1999 I read The Art of World Wisdom. It was an interesting book of advice and practical information no unlike The Prince by Machiavelli. Some simple advice from Baltasar (I can't help thinking of Battle Star Galactica - both the Starsky & Hutch 1980s version as well as the gritty one made in the early 2000s) on minding one's words. It is one of the hardest things to do, walk back a ill spoken word in a careless moment or during a time of rage. I imagine a fair number of us have that relative or co-worker that has nothing but negative thoughts and feelings associated with their person. "Aunt Gertrude said I was never going to amount to anything." While Aunt Gertrude may have said many other things, perhaps even good and useful things, that phrase is what first comes to mind for many of us. Sometimes even a random nobody, trolls, can say thinks that strike a nerve. It shouldn't have taken the internet to identify that behavior, trolls have existed for a long time. They go by many names. Some people relish being trolls, and can even handle verbal pushback and jousting, but a fair number are paper tigers and can dish the crap, but not handle it. There is always time to add words, rarely withdraw one easily. I wouldn't say never like Baltasar does, but he has a book and I don't.
Humans are rational creatures, from time to time. We live in the the age of emotional excesses and exaggerations. While facts don't care about your feelings, feeling mobs don't care about your facts. In the decay of culture & discourse that started last century, emotions can become the refuge of those incapable of sustained or critical thought. For those unable to admit their ignorance or even fault, their fortress of feelings becomes their safe-space. I feel _________. While you can't disagree with that statement, so what? Not reality, only a reaction to it. Don't ignore feelings, but don't make them gospel. One of my frequent comments in sermons and spiritual direction, feelings are great for fuel but terrible for a directional system.
If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, acknowledging I don't know is perhaps the beginning of learning. Admission of ignorance opens the door to knowledge, or at least it should. Unassailable ignorance, it can affect any of us, but hopefully it is not a permanent state. If you find yourself in a permanent state of ignorance, you are probably qualified for political office, perhaps even the highest office in the land. Happy Wednesday Friends!
Old barn, near Subiaco, Arkansas
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
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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.”
