Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Hello friends at Rubin Report, Phetasy, Triggernometry and Padre's. Sure I have all my little affectations for you that I use on these post, you know them all. 😁 For me it is all part of making you part of my extended family, some I know well from our interactions here, others are like 3rd or 4th cousins that I many know of, but really have never met. Where ever you fall on that spectrum, I am thankful this platform, Locals, and these communities are places of connection and engagement.
Akin to gratitude, one of my favorite topics, is appreciation & encouragement. I don't like to be blind in my appreciation or encouragement, but mindful. Complimenting, encouraging or appreciating for trivial or inconsequential things often devalues the experience of actual accomplishment. Children can see through it and adults just become jaded once they realize it.
While mindless appreciation can have negative consequences, absence of appreciation can be devastating. There are people who journey through life with no appreciation for much of anything. I cannot imagine making my pilgrimage through life with no awareness of the gift of living, no appreciation for the experiences life may afford me and no appreciation for the talents and gifts of other or even my own.
Families are often the test lab for the experience of appreciation. There we learn the balance of appreciation. We might come from homes of mindless appreciation and either become addicted to it, or jaded from it. We might come from homes of no appreciation, which can leave us feeling bitter and that nothing is worthy of our notice or appreciation. Most of us probably come from families that were a mixed bag of appreciation and indifference, of being noticed and being ignored, of thoughtful encouragement or negative engagement.
Thankfully none of us are prisoners to our family history. We can grow from the good and shift out the bad. I am not a fan of perpetual victimology, crap happens, deal with, process it and do your best to make most of it. Conversely, having it too easy, being awash in too much mindless appreciation (faux-appreciation) can mistaken make one think life is a cakewalk. A life of minimal engagement, little effort and no goals or hopes might make life a cakewalk, but it will be boring as hell.
Our 8th Graders are being Confirmed this Sunday. Their word for the weekend is STRIVE. That is such a good succinct word for living a life of appreciation. What do you strive to become, where to you strive for life to lead you, what do you strive to learn from life? So many applications, striving leads to a life of engagement that one can hope is filled with appreciation, not only from the good we experience, but the painful lessons as well.
Well Refugees, Phamily & Triggeratti, Early Birds, Dawn Patrol, Fascinating People, Later Dayers, Day Walkers & Beautiful Bigots, thank you for taking the time to read this morning musing and many of them that I post in my wee hours of the day. Know of I appreciation for our Content-Creators and the communities they opened and the wonderous and assorted people they have attracted. Some of you have grown very fond of in my ventures here. A couple of quotes and something beautiful to finish off this post. Happy Saturday!
Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good. -Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -Anne Bradstreet, Meditations Divine and Moral
Ignorant men Don’t know what good they hold in their hands until They’ve flung it away. -Sophocles, Ajax
Spring Cottage - Buckinghamshire
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
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Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
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.”
