Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Friday ADD Irregulars, WSN Vagabonds, Friends, Refugees, Early Birds, Later Dayers, Conversants, Lurkers, Phamily, Dawn Patrol, Triggeratti, Merry Bigots, Fascinating People, Seekers of Sanity and Civility and and all the rest of you Supporters & Members at Locals!
I had a great Retreat - I am sure I will be mulling over Narrative Grace for many months to come. It was great to have the time to pray, reflect and experience some good fellowship with my fellow priests. I am immensely blessed in my life.
Today I want to thank all of our Veterans for there service to our Nation. When I think of the men and women who have served our Nation words like SERVICE, SACRIFICE, SELFLESS come to mind. I know not all Veterans embody all three of those virtues, but the best do and any Veteran embodies at least one of them.
I can't imagine any young man or women not realizing when they enlist that minimally they are offering their life in service to our Nation. I pray their service will help them mature as the type of citizens with engaged awareness that this Republic needs to thrive. I know that is hopeful thinking, but knowing that your life has entered a life of serious consequence, it ought to make one more mature and aware. Knowing that your actions can have consequences that reverberate well beyond the moment and that choice invites one to a maturity that everyday living rarely affords. I think the most aware are the ones that have to face the most serious consequences in times of war and conflict.
The most dangerous type of service involves sacrifice. You hope you and your comrades never have to face that bridge, but you aren't terrified of it. Respectfully fearful of a potentially final moment and yet consequentially courageous to act in the moment for a perceived good that may well give birth to countless unknown goods only to be seen years later. It can come with terrible loss, your own life, your comrades who actually understand the weight of that moment, and haunting memories of choices, consequences, losses and sorrows that leave one wrestling with the meaning of those moments for a lifetime.
Such willingness to embrace service and to offer your life as a sacrifice, not always the ultimate one, but always a sacrifice of convenience and one's own will, is worth honoring and celebrating. Most people can't imagine sacrificing convenience and we are all tempted to want the validation of our own will as the greatest form of freedom and self-expression. My will be done never reaches beyond self and is probably more self-destructive than the individual will ever know until it has caused severe damage to self and others. So thank you Veterans for your service, sacrifice and selflessness that the best of you embody and challenge all of to live. I know Memorial Day is for all of our Fallen, but even today as we honor you, I remember those who no longer live to see another Veteran's Day. You have my prayers and gratitude. May we (The Public) strive to form a society that is worthy of your service and sacrifice. Peace.
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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Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
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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.”
