Good Morning Digitial Neighbors! Happy Sunday ADD Irregulars, WSN Purveyors, Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Misfits & PHAM, Conversants, Lurkers and Lost.
I've been somewhat negligent in my morning ramblings since purchasing a new car this week. After celebrating my morning prayers I have been going out for drives to listen to music and figure out how to use a car significantly smarter than myself. For the last 28 years a I have my time behind the wheel of a Geo Tracker (Wanna-be-jeep) from 1995 until 2010 and then a Wrangler from 2010 until Tuesday. Jeeps rides have been a hallmark of my ministry, going for rides to listen to others, to provide some pastoral counseling or spiritual direction was easy ways to help people process the experiences of life. I guess we will be going for Mazda rides here on out, which will take some adapting on my part, but I look forward to learning the ins & outs of the CX-50.
Going for rides provides an interesting context for conversations, it allows the person sharing the freedom to move more easily from casual to serious topics without feeling the weight on my stare upon them. They can stare out the window for the serious stuff and do more side glances for the less serious stuff to make sure I am still listening. I tend to repeat any serious stuff that is shared back to my ride-along to make sure I not only heard what they said but also understood it. That part is more important than I ever realized in pastoral counseling when I first started out on this road. Many hear but poorly listen. So many things prevent good listening and thus prevent better communication and understanding.
Working through our own biases and mental filtering is one of the first things to try and grow through on the path to better listening and providing some meaningful (you hope good but that is debatable) feedback and insight. Good counseling does not have to provide answers, it can provide some, but it is better to help the individual wrestle with the questions and seek better answers. I don't think a good guide lets them just find their own answers since a mentally or emotionally ill person will arrive at all kinds of misguided conclusions. You want to point them in the field of good choices knowing that you may not be as accurate as you hope or insightful as the person you as helping may think. Most of us helpers are only a few steps further down the road of integrated living and thoughtful engagement, everyone has their own challenges and shortcomings that they are hopefully addressing. No one is so far ahead down the road that they cannot regress or become lost themselves. No pedestals for the living and never become seduced by your own success or security.
Often these morning missives strive to be on the hopeful, positive and on the happier side of existence. That does not mean that life, mine or yours, is on the happier side of reality. Many can struggle with great burdens without ever giving any indication of the weight of their challenges. Others can talk so endlessly about their problems that it becomes a barrier to getting help or finding friends because oversharing is often a warning to others. Certain situations facilitate sharing more readily like a 12 Step or other support meeting, but too often hurting souls do not find the connection they need because oversharing too soon can be challenging. Most people need a good friend more than a therapist, counselor or even a minister. My real help comes in the area of spiritual direction much more so than pastoral counseling. I am happy to do both, but I know where I am more inclined to be of service.
Social media communities like Rubin Report, Phetasy, Padre's and other communities can often provide a means to connecting to others and offer the possibility of friendship which seems to be at an all-time low in our culture. Most people don't need many friends, but no friends is a real poverty and a real danger to becoming hypnotized by your own mind and experience.
Thanks for being part of this ride-along, I never know where it is going to go when I start these ramblings, detours, distractions and diversions are just part of being Tom that I have learned to appreciate. Happy Sunday friends and 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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Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
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Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
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.”
