Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Wednesday ADD Irregulars and all visitors to this WSN of amused seekers!
Why bother with these prayers? Or any prayer for that matter? The heart of prayer for me is to trust God. While my trust may take many variations, in the end I want to trust this Being/Person that I believe has given me life, meaning and purpose. I am not praying to change God, I am praying to change me. I am entrusting myself, my friends and loved ones to His providential goodness in a world that is increasingly broken and unraveling. I am seeking mercy, giving praise, offering thanks, learning discipline, pursuing some deeper understanding of the whatness of my little patch of reality as well as the world around me.
I'd rather know the bad, evil and frustrating in life than pretending it does not exist. I don't want a sugar coated pill that is ultimately poisonous. At the same time, I cannot go through life wearing crap-covered glasses expecting to see things clearly or positively. Each day and each chapter of life has its own unfolding and trying to see as clearly as possible is where life and faith intersect for me. Being a person of faith, prayer and reflection is to try (I flounder plenty and my own blind spots and ignorance's are immense) to wrestle with reality until dawn. I have always had a fondness for Jacob, even God or the angel can sucker punch you into submission, but good contention can make a world of difference. Off to the prayer, thanks for listening.
LIVING PAGES
Let me leave margins of silence
around the activities of day,
letting You write down there
whatever it is You would say.
Then looking backward, I find,
no matter how much I revise,
it is in Your footnotes
that the heart of my life lies.
Elizabeth Searle Lamb
Some July flowers
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.
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.”
