If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years. - Bertrand Russell
I am not sure about the paradise part of Professor Russell's quote, but we could have a far better societies if the Cult of Resentment, the Clingers and Cultivators of resentment & perpetual Injury did not want to see you made miserable by adhering to their cultic thinking. For centuries it used to be the dominate religion of your area, sign on to the Catholic, Lutheran, or other religion and keep your mouth shut so as not to enrage the majority which is always just a mob away from purges and persecution. That Christians, of almost all flavors, (probably not Quakers) have been involved in persecution of minorities (religious, ethnic or otherwise) is one of the greatest scandals in history. The persecutions have less to do with the creed of Christians and much more to do with the will of the dominate culture or its leaders. Faith and religion is just another excuse for people (almost always men) in positions of power to exercise their will regardless of whatever they claim to believe. Where will dominates conscience, virtue is typically non-existent.
With the waning of Christianity and the rise of Statist cults like National Socialism and Communism, you no longer appeal to a better part of humanity by looking back at someone like a Christ figure, you look forward to a better future once all the wrong thinkers are silenced, compelled or killed. That last part is the easiest thing to do, especially if you can make people feel good about killing all the wrong thinkers, offensive-livers and scapegoats for your cause. Your righteousness is what matters, please set aside your questioning, thinking or disagreements. Compassion seems to be one of their first causalities in cults, the othering of your opponents frees you to treat them in the worst possible ways. So sorry friends, rather dark (like my coffee) but there is light, just hard to find at times when you see the gathering darkness.
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming. - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Humanity - good or evil? Humanity - whole or broken? Humanity - doomed or hopeful?
Good, broken & hopeful are where I tend to fall in those choices. That does not mean that many cannot choose evil and many may be attracted to a doomed course of actions, but for the majority of humanity they just want to go about their daily lives trying to provide for themselves and their families. I try not to subscribe to the the dance of opposites, there may be poles in opposition to one another, but there are many variables in-between. Shepherds, predators, rams, ewes and lambs are all in the mix. One group wants to eat all the others, that sets them part from the rest. While all may be opposed to predators, shepherds have the best chance of opposing the predators with the least amount of risk to self. Rams and ewes can protect the lambs and the rest of the flock, but often at the cost of self. Without going all The Island of Dr. Moreau, one of the real works of a shepherd is to help more of the flock as it were to join in the shepherding of others. Not everyone will respond to being treated better, some will exploit it, not all shepherds remain virtuous, that broken part can lead anyone down the path of exploiting the flock and becoming a predator in disguise. Where there is some sense of goodness, I think you can cultivate it, where there is not, you will try in vain to grow a plant out of a rock that you thought was a seed. No amount of water will change it. I'd like to think there are more seeds than rocks out there in the hearts of humanity.
We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing each other. - Luciano De Crescenzo
I hope so, I pray so, I live so. While othering is a plague on modern discourse, one should always exercise good judgment and situational awareness to your environment. If you think the wolf is the guard dog, you are toast. All dogs were once wolves, so domestication is possible. I guess I forgot to mention guard dogs are part of that mix that works with shepherds in protecting the flock. I like guard dogs, some are even more attuned to the workings of predators than the shepherd because their nature is only a few steps removed. Human-kind - be both. I try to return to that those thoughts often.
The three great essentials of happiness are: something to do, someone to love and something to hope for. - Alexander Chalmers
Amen. Happy Tuesday Digital Neighbors! I hope all of you have a great day ADD Irregulars, Refugees & Phamily!
Rainy Days in Eminence, MO
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
Thursday, January 1, 2026
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Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
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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.”
