Good Morning Digital Neighbors, ADD Irregulars, WSN Content Creators, Seeking Skeptics and dear Disciples of the Master. A bit more on prayer for this mornings musings.
One of the real things Disciples and Luke-Warmers struggle with is not seeing their prayers answered. The response between the two should be different, but it often is not. The Adversaries (The Fallen & Corrupted) want us to firmly believe that God neither loves us nor is even remotely attentive to us. They want us to believe that God is worth ignoring, discounting and just not seeking. For the Fallen, God is an empty suit, an arbitrary Being that imposes His/Their will on lesser beings in prideful glee. It is a subtle whisper, not a demonic assault or even remotely supernatural, just a thought bobble to preoccupy our mind.
Luke-Warmers will fall for it every time, because God does not bend to our will, and in doing so does not seem to answer prayers. They asked God for X and they got 0. The Luke-Warmers claim it is bullshit because they believe God is the Cosmic Skip & Fetch it Being. The relationship is so freaking bass-ackwards that it is hard to shake them out of that mindset if you ever get the chance. St. Irenaeus stated in the 2nd century: For, as much as God is in want of nothing, so much does man stand in need of fellowship with God.
There are Seekers, many I have found here, that are not Luke-Warmers and yet not declared Disciples. They may not be religious, they may not be people of faith, but they are Seeker of the Mysterium, the Luminous, the Wisdom that is behind the veil of reality & experience. I appreciate them so very much because they are aware that life, God or reality owes us nothing, but provides us with the opportunities to do and be something more than we were on hatching day. While I might hope they would seek Discipleship, I tend to not be militant about it or even pushy. I respect and appreciate that there are divergent path that eventually coalesce into whatever we humbly call the TRUTH. While I think the Gospel is the superhighway, the Master has left signs in creation that point towards Him/Them. There is a Homecoming for all of us at the end (I hope) and who was right or wrong will be irrelevant in that new state of being. There is also judgment - we are either sons & daughters of Communion or creatures of Self.
OK, back to unanswered prayers for Disciples. One of the greatest struggles for Disciples of varying maturity is the experience of unanswered prayers. This is especially the case when we pray for others who are suffering and we seek release from their suffering, healing for their pain or ease of their trials. Those are great things to seek in prayer. The Psalmist (David and other authors) often asked for deliverance, often asked if God was heedful of their prayers. Sometimes the psalms are so blunt that we feel a bit taken aback about such bluntness with God, and yet if you follow the plasm to the end is the expression of trust and reliance upon God. The Psalmist knows his/her place before God as the son or daughter seeking to trust the Divine.
For Disciples of the Incarnate One, it should be obvious (but often isn't) that the Master believes that immense good can come out of suffering, betrayal, denial, abandonment and finally death. He did not exempt Himself and we (Disciples) believe that He could have at any moment but chose not too. Buddha said life is suffering and the Master said that is where I will meet you more than anywhere else. Not because He wills suffering, but because suffering in its various forms push us to trust or betrayal. We will either hold fast to what we seek & love or we will fold. There is forgiveness after folding (ask St. Peter) but it is better for your sense of self not to fold. Pray for deliverance according to God's will and acceptance in the present moment.
Unanswered prayers for family & friends tempt us to think God is indifferent, but if we want to be an advocate for our Humble Lover of Souls, we would do well to encourage them to hold fast to trusting God. We would do well to be compassionate to our suffering loved one with real gifts of time and self. No "ought's" since those seem to set us up for failure, but doing well is something we ought to seek often if not always.
Intercession and acceptance are at the heart of prayer for Disciples and other Seekers as they long for communion with the Mysterium and their neighbor. My unanswered prayers have opened my eyes and stirred my soul to see beyond experience and to believe in goodness on the other side of trials. I know this to be true and try my best not to forget it.
HOLY MOLEY - diarrhea of the mouth this morning - thanks for sticking with me if you managed to do it.
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! Hey there, all you Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers, PHAM & Misfits, Questioners and Critical Thinkers, ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, Curmudgeons & Curmudgeonessas! Happy Friday!
It has been a broiler of a week down here in the foothills of the Ozarks. I worked one summer for the street department of Elsberry, the little speed-trap town that was my childhood home. It was one of the hottest and most physical jobs I ever worked — mainly laying tar on streets, lots of mowing, and the occasional day in the water treatment plant if there was rain.
MF’er Mike was one of the full-time guys working with us college students, and he prefaced every sentence with profanity (which I have a high tolerance for), but it does get tiresome. I think of him occasionally on these sweltering days because he called it swamp-ass weather. We all knew what he meant by the end of the morning after working outside in the heat. Well, ...
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.”
