Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers, Phamily & Dawn Patrol, Bigots, Fascinating People & Triggeratti and all you wonderful ADD Irregulars & Wanderers of the WSN!
The best of the internet and its promise happened this weekend. Back in the early 90's was the promise of connecting people with one another in ways that were previously thought impossible. Individuals that had not met in person, have not had the opportunity to measure, assess and come to know one another could actual form real relationships that would lead to friendships. That was the promise of the internet, the exposure to the depth and breathe of humanity. I thought it was going to be a gathering of the exceptional and the chance to meet so many amazing people from around the globe. There is indeed the opportunity to be exposed to the exceptional even if you may never meet them, and their is also the encounter with the numberless normies whom you have a far greater chance of meeting. As a barely above normie, I can testify to that. Like attracts like in a good and common way of being human. There are so many people to enjoy and appreciate than I had imagined. Sadly there are far more disturbed and maladjusted people than you might encounter in normal life. Emboldened by anonymity and safely ensconced behind their screens they act with a brazen attitude that would have publicly earned them an ass-kicking. Such were the 90's and early 00's. Something have not changed much.
While time often determines the worth of a friendship or familial tie, that is often a false or simplistic assumption. The depth of vulnerability, the openness of self, the mutual respect and patience given to one another is what really determines the worth of a relationship. While families are meant to be the first experience of that, they often aren't. Families have a horrible tendency to repeat broken habits and poor methods of building or stressing the bonds that unite us. That causes so much stress and sorrow for individuals because many members eventually come to know it could be different. The desire for individuality and personhood often rages against conformity and established pecking order. Who we are should not come at the expense of who I am, conversely who I am has to have some give and take to be part of the greater WE. When there is trust, respect and vulnerability (not necessarily agreement) that dance and tension of I & We can work surprisingly well. No duh, Padre!! Spelling out the obvious helps my clarity of thought if nothing else. 😁
Many consider the internet and social media in particular to be a false reality since there is often no way to confirm the person who are meeting. Some disparage community formed in these environs, ironic if they happen to be acknowledging that while utilizing social media, and only consider meeting in person to be "real". Meeting in person is a great confirmation, but even without it community can happen and friendships can form in this most fragile of mediums. That was the hope of the 90's for many of us and I think that this most current chapter of the internet as expressed by the Locals template helps facilitate that. Well that is enough rambling for a Monday, thanks for indulging me if you read along this far. Happy Monday Digital Neighbors!!!
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. - J. R. R. Tolkien
Autumn Red Barn by Debra and Dave Vanderlaan
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.
(See the first comment for the explanation of MOAR. It came up early in the morning chat.)
Good morning, digital neighbors! S.H.I.T - SURE HAPPY ITS THURSDAY! We had a radio personality say that every Thursday when he signed on to his program. It must have stuck for I still remember it to this day. Either way, welcome to a new day, and let's continue our visit with M. Scott Peck's collection of quotes.
Today's section on happiness deals with contentment. One of the things I pray for along with an ever deepening faith is to be reasonably content in my life and in my happenings. I don't want to be complacent, which is very similar to contentment in its origin but yields vastly different fruit. Complacency leads to boredom, which seems to be a major affliction in modern living, whereas contentment leads to gratitude and perspective. Well, it ought to if one is really trying to practice contentment, to take nothing for granted, to name your benefits and blessings, and to strive for growth of virtue...
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.”
