Dear Digital Neighbors I am preparing for a funeral this morning and thinking of how I often approach the Divine. My faith is in the Healer of Souls, and my expression of that in creed & worship is Roman Catholicism. Today's funeral is one touched with more sorrow than most. Samantha (Sam) was only 31 years old and her lived ended so early because of the experience with postpartum depression.
If anyone understands the darkness of suicide, the distortion chamber that depression is, it is the Healer of Souls. Sometimes His light is powerful enough to break through the darkness and other times it is not. It makes it very difficult for Disciples when loved one fall to the power of depression and see death as the only means of ending their exile from self. An all powerful, all loving and all good Deity ought to be able to break through such things, and the framing of respecting free-will and invitations to trust and patiently accept often break many struggling Disciples. The problem of evil is one of the most persistent arguments for those who walk away from organized religion and all of its trials.
My words to Sam's family will be one of encouraging them to seek Jesus, the Healer of Souls. My invitation to them is to hold each other lovingly and patiently and eventually surrender the sorrow, pain and confusion to Him as they move through this experience of loss. There will be many questions that will remain unanswered and their eventual ability to release them to God, the great unknown or just humble acceptance of the reality will determine how their future unfold. Feelings may not be reality, but powerful dark ones can overshadow our ability to see and live in the light of life.
I will encourage them to remember Sam in her vibrancy of life and all the things she loved in life. Those things were the real and true experiences of her life. Depression was the lie and distortion. Depression was the thief robbing her of joy and hope. Depression is real, but its lies are not. If you are the praying type, your prayers for her and her family are appreciated. Please lift her up to the Healer of Souls. Please pray for Christian her husband, their three children Lyra, Roselia & Lucia. Please remember her parents, Barry & Karen, and her brothers Dane and Max. Peace my friends, and thank you for reading this and remembering them.
https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/26025747/samantha-renee-grandon
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
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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.”
