Good Morning Friends & Digital Neighbors! Happy Sunday to all of my neighbors across the Local-sphere! This following is an edited reprint from Thanksgiving week in 2021. Some edits and additions.
I can't say I wake with excitement, but I usually get out of bed and get rolling with the day. Thinking of what the day holds, what I will share here or discover in the post of others, what the flow of the day might entail. It begins most days with prayer and coffee, and then continues with more coffee and roaming about the inter-webs, often posting something here, visiting the Smokehaus, Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars on Zoom, vesting for Mass, welcoming the faithful, celebrating the Sacrifice and by then it is about 8:30 AM and the day is in high gear for the planned and unexpected unfolding of the day.
Sundays are a little different - more prayer and coffee in the morning and no Smokehaus or Coffee Talks. The day moves at a more measured and less rushed pace, easy like Sunday morning. Whatever happened to Lionel Richie, all of a of sudden he was gone from the 80's? Sunday Mass is foundational for the day and the week. I often remind my parishioners that this is our most important hour together. Everything we are about as a family of faith flows from our time together in this one ordinary and yet profoundly sacred hour. Most Sundays there is brunch at Momma Keune's and some excellent home cooking, occasionally I visit other parishioners or have to make other plans, it is all good. I am abundantly blessed in my personal good fortune. There is the afternoon Speakeasy, but that is much later in the day. Still worth a drop in if you are new, all are welcome. Happy Sunday Friends and off to a fitting poem for a Sunday.
Each morning I awake
with excitement
overwhelmed by the leaves
turning outside the window,
the scent of fall,
the slant of morning light,
the books on my nightstand
filled with promise
the books on the coffee table
in the living room where you sit
already awake
in the unfolding of day
reading or writing, coffee in hand,
looking up and smiling, as you do.
Michael S. Glaser
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
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Always invited, never expected.
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.”
