Good Morning Digital Neighbors!! Happy Sunday ADD Irregulars, Friends, Refugees, Early Birds, Later Dayers, Conversants, Lurkers, Phamily, Dawn Patrol, Triggeratti, Merry Bigots, Fascinating People, Seekers of Civility and Sanity and all you Quarterlings!
All days are days for faith and worship for your friendly neighborhood Friar, but Sunday is the day of worship for Disciples of the Master to celebrate His Resurrection from the Dead. While it is most natural to talk about faith, spirituality, religion, prayer or worship on a Sunday, I do enjoy talking about my second favorite topic, humor. After faith, nothing keeps me more grounded than cultivating a sense of humor and the laughter that flows from it.
One ought to be able to laugh at life and oneself. Life is funny, much of what we do, think or say can be subject to humor and laughter. Good humor exposes the illogical, absurd and ill-thought things we do or say as human beings. Good humor can give rise to questions, criticisms or thoughts about our own sacred totems and make us realize that not everyone finds them sacred or praiseworthy.
Humor can be meanspirited and when it attacks persons more than the absurd ideas and the stupid actions they commit, it can cross over that threshold of more attacking than actual humor. It is sort of funny, and some may find laugher in it, but more often than not it appeals to a smaller crowd of people who just want to see someone tore down or a fight ensue. Thick-skinned people can handle personal attacks and fragile people cannot. Even thick-skinned people can be pushed to the point of not finding humor laughable. Fragile souls, which this current chapter of culture has plenty, cannot handle humor and will find themselves in an increasingly smaller and humorless life. They will be left with angry, self-righteous convictions. That used to be the sole possession of uptight religious types last century and prior generations, but thanks to modern "higher" education, plenty of non-religious types can now be joyless and solely serious bores. Perhaps they are not that different from the religious types of past generations, since WOKE and its adjacent goons are every bit as fanatical as the book & witch burners of old. A few quotes to round out todays post and one of my mother's favorite Norman Rockwell pictures called The Winner. Happy Sunday my friends across Locals!
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand. - Mark Twain
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. - Mahatma Gandhi
I realize that humor isn't for everyone. It's only for people who want to have fun, enjoy life, and feel alive. - Anne Wilson Schaef
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. - Clive James
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.
It was true 70 years ago and is still true today
https://x.com/ValerieAnne1970/status/2109811366101967082?s=20
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.”
