Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday ADD Irregulars, Seekers of the WSN and all other Happenstancers that find there way here!
How about a week of prayers-poems-prose for our troubled world? Not necessarily from the Catholic or Christian tradition, but I certainly don't rule out those from the home turf as it was. 😊
THE INNER FLAME
I am not more than
a wisp
of
smoke
to the world,
but
to God
I am a flame of hope and promise
in a darkened room.
Joan Noeldechen
Much like attitude, perspective helps us see things more clearly. There is no denying the mess of the current state of things and its potential to get messier. There is plenty of encroaching darkness in the world, and it cares not a lick for any single one of us. Top that with individuals and organizations that don't mind the oppression and exploitations of others and you can pull out your Crayola doom coloring collection for many legitimate concerns. The macro is more than most of us can manage, and a steady diet of powerless fretting over world or national events that you cannot effect leads many to despair.
I am not saying don't be informed, but pay attention to your interior state. Getting wound up about the macro while ignoring the immediate will not lead you to a happier end game. Be informed on the macro, engaged in the micro and as attentive as possible to your interior dialogue and mental state. Allow the Divine, Fate, hopeful humanism or whatever you call it to make you a light to others rather than a person cursing the darkness and at the same time unwittingly contributing to it.
No sugarcoating, we are neck-deep in the crap, maybe even chin deep, but we are not choking on it yet nor or we constrained from doing our part about it in our immediate acre of reality. I believe in someone who who sees us as flames of hope and promise, that is more than enough for today. Peace my friends.
Campfire on Bose Lake - Eric Tank
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.
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.”
