Good Morning ADD Irregulars! I hope everyone had a great weekend, I was blessed with many visitors yesterday and was blessed with about 6 and half hours of great fellowship with family and friends. I was tired at the end but it was a good type of tired that fills you with gratitude for the riches of your life. I am blessed with an outpouring of friendship and love.
While very tired from the day, last night was not a night of good rest. My temporary friends gave me little rest last night. I am hoping for a nap this afternoon, but I have even less of a clue of what today will hold. I did get some sleep, but it is even less than what I normally achieve. Sleep is an achievement, I was happy before the fall with what my body would afford me. Now is a period of adjustment, and I am not a fan of sleep aids that make me feel more dulled for the first hours of the morning. I'd rather coffee-up and wake up.
If I achieve a run of restless nights I may have to reconsider my attitude towards sleep aids, they have been offered, but I have voiced my hesitancy. Nor do I intend to whine about it in these missives, while these morning rambles are of my typical style of open and spontaneous reflection after prayer, I do worry about how this current chapter in my life can open the doors to too much navel gazing and talking about self. My goal is to give you a window of how I am trying to be, trying to focus my attitude, trying to excises the muscles of faith and humor to be better person rather than a tired and complaining person wallowing in the pain and frustrations of this current chapter.
I think back of my parents 50th wedding anniversary. During the homily I came down to mom and dad in the pew and dealt some cards. 5 card draw was the game and the deck was set to give dad a full house if he discarded the right cards and kept the good ones. He played it right and had a Full House, not the best hand but a very good one. He reveled his hand and I reveal mine, 4 of a kind. Beats a Full House, but then I shifted talking points and said the point of the homily was not the hand and what it would beat, but what cards to keep and what cards he lost to make the best hand possible with what you have.
Discerning the cards to keep or discard with the current hand has become something of a life lesson. Hold on to the wrong cards or let go of the good ones and your current hand is hurt and most likely a losing one. It will lead to regrets, sometimes very costly ones. Life is a series of deal after deal, the games may vary like in a Dealer's Choice, but the rules for the hands and their ranking remain the same. The real work is in the discernment of your hand, assessing your odds, pushing your confidence and luck, placing your bets and hoping for the best. The Master helps us to see our hand more clearly, even when it looks like we have been dealt a losing hand. The Master reminds me constantly that life is not one solitary hand, but a series of hands often related, but occasionally random and unexpected hands get added to the mix. Never ignore the current hand, but don't place all your emotional and personal chips on it, remember the past games and anticipate the next one.
God is good, but He does not allow life to be an endless parade of great hands. He often lets us determine the game and the contents far more than we might realize. He is not the puppet master pulling the strings, nor is He an indifferent observer deaf or blind to our concerns. Light, breathe, water, salt are the images of how He likes to describe His more subtle movements among us. The lack of any of those for too long will impoverish or end our lives. Breathe and water are essential, light and salt bring out color, form and flavor to the gift of life. The humble God of subtle movements invites me to discern my hand, place my bets and play my cards. I am not playing against the Dealer, but rather against the board or life as it were. While The Dealer seems impersonal at times and indifferent, He gives us constant gentle signs to make the best out of any possible deal. This again is not to yield to Pollyannaish thinking, some deals are crap. Sit tight. Await the next deal. Keep your head in the game.
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.
Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Monday to all you fine souls scattered across the internet and patronizing the Rubin Report, Phetasy, Outspoken, and @Padre’s. A prayer for students, scholars, and all the rest of you lifelong learners — from Every Moment Holy, that treasure trove of beautiful prayer and prose. Have a great day, dear neighbors!
May I learn to love learning, O Lord,
for the world is yours,
and all things in it speak
—each in their way—of you:
of your mind,
your designs,
your artistry,
your power,
your unfolding purpose.
All knowledge is your knowledge.
All wisdom your wisdom.
Therefore, as I apply myself to learning,
may I be mindful that all created things
are your creative expression, that all stories
are held within your greater story,
and that all disciplines of order and design
are a chasing after your thoughts—
so that greater mastery of these subjects
will yield ever greater knowledge of the
symmetry and wonder of your ways.
Along this journey,
O Great ...
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.”
