Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday ADD Irregulars and all inhabitants of the Weird Shit Niche'. I thought I would share some quotes about friendship this week. Back in my seminary days I did a term paper on friendship and morality. It was a fun paper to research, especially since Paul Wadell built upon the ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas to explore friendship as the school of virtue. On to the quotes!!
The influence of each human being on others is a kind of immortality. - John Quincy Adams
I think of Paul Gilbert, one of my first childhood friends when we moved to Elsberry from St. Louis. I was four years old when we left the city for the countryside and the house on the lake. I was in the world of army men, old block Legos, various cartoons and bugs. Paul introduced me to dinosaurs and old movie monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula. I suppose I would have eventually discovered such things on my own, but it was great that Paul shared his enjoyment of them with me. He knew as much about dinosaurs as I knew about bugs. Going to the country exploded my interest in bugs and nature as a whole. It was a win-win on loving life and finding creation so amazing.
During junior high Paul moved away from Elsberry. I saw him in high school one time during the summer and have never seen him since. I can't see the old classic movie monsters or toy dinosaurs and wonder how he is doing, if he is doing or what path his life took.
Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter. - James Fenimore Cooper
Friendships worth having are worth maintaining. Sounds so simple, and yet in our disposable world and ready to be offended culture, they can disappear quickly. You can't be friends with everyone, but to be friends with no one is to live in exile with someone insane, yourself. The absence of a voice other that your own is the making of all kinds of misfortune. "I don't need anyone." Very true, you may not need anyone, but you ought to desire someone to share the adventure of living.
Understanding, forgiveness, appreciated differences, curious discussion of ideas and disagreements without nullification, laughter, sorrow and the joy of discovery of whole worlds or experiences foreign and familiar can flourish in the garden of friendship. We know this, but the saying of things makes us more mindful and hopefully thankful. Happy Monday my friends.
Hot July sky - dunno who or where, but it is a beautiful scene.
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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Quite apart from the fact that I utterly admire, even love, her, this is the best possible response to an idiot, who, in his defense, asked a pretty good question.
https://x.com/TBifford/status/2087992591279407133/video/1?s=61
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.”
