Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Sunday to all you friends across the Locals-verse! Apparently the inter-webs has had some cartoon going around that attempts to illustrate the if roles were reversed men would hate getting compliments that women routinely hear. The examples don't seem even remotely sexist to me, perhaps I am just too dense of a clerical clod, but for the most part seem to illustrate what was once common civility.
Whatever this is trying to highlight among the sexes or other members of society with fictitious genders or actual biological gender dysphoria, it puts the spot light on attitude. Are you a person ready to be easily offended? If so, you are embarking on a life journey of misery, isolation and either mental illness or perpetual embittering complaint. While you may find companions for your complaining, you will not find lasting communion.
The Embittered are incapable of communion, of an actual mutual experience of gratitude and shared joy. It is odd because embitterment and perpetual compliant is very close to feeling something like communion and friendship. WE hate or oppose X It might be a person, a group, some ideology or cultural reality. There is a bond caused by opposition to a greater perceived problem or "evil". As long as the problem endures, the bond survives. Unless something more becomes part of the bond it eventually unravels or turns on it self. The fracturing at the end of the alphabet gender letters seems to illustrate that. As the subject of offense become more absurd the bonds grow weaker since any criticism or question regarding the nature of offense warrants your automatic exclusion from the embitterment club.
Somewhere between being perpetually offended and Pollyannaish naivety is thoughtful living. We used to call it decency or civility, I am not sure what it is called today. I strive to be a person of meaningful compliments and authentic gratitude. Often time in my public meanderings I try to be mindful of the humanity around me and their stories' and struggles unknown to me. So many just pass me by without a word, but the ones I engage with at businesses and the like at least get to interact with a version of Tom that tries to be considerate and civil. Simple expressions of gratitude for being at their job, wishing them a jerk free day as they staff a register, holding doors for strangers whatever their Heinz 57 gender might be is all part of trying to make my local experience of humanity better than what I see on the internet or broadcast by the media. Small efforts, but changing the world is always a grassroots reality.
I tend not to be a vapid smiler, I have been told I need to smile more, but I think I smile sufficiently. Exteriorly I tell people "thanks" with an slightly or greatly exaggerated smile, interiorly I know it is their issue (usually right after having thought BITE ME ) and I can patiently weather such things as the little rough edges all of us possess. I am mindful that when I see someone looking burdened, a simple word of recognition and appreciation can go a long way. If they take offense at it a sincere compliment, another critter gets added to the field guide of embitterment recognition. I rarely encounter such people, perhaps that is one of the benefits of rural life. I am not sure.
Civility, charity, patience, kindness all make for a better experience of humanity. I cannot change a culture in decay or a world of extreme fragility, but I can make my little acres of interaction, my frequent stops along the journey of life, more meaningful for myself and those I meet. Happy Sunday Digital Neighbors!
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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Good morning, digital neighbors! Blessed Sabbath to all my neighbors in Judaism and happy Saturday to all the rest of us! How about a few quotes on autumn for this fine autumn morning and a trip down memory lane for some of us? Have a great day, my friends!
"Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, / We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!" – Humbert Wolfe, "Autumn (Resignation)" (1926)
"Again the wind / flakes gold-leaf from the trees and the painting darkens— / as if a thousand penitents kissed an icon / till it thinned back to bare wood, / without diminishment." – Jane Hirshfield, "Autumn" (The Paris Review, 1988)
"Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits." – Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903)
When I think of autumn and childhood, I always think of this old Disney cartoon. I probably watch it every autumn in the days leading up to Halloween. Enjoy!
...
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.”
