Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Good Morning Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers, Phamily & Dawn Patrol, Day Walkers & Misfits, ADD Irregulars, WSN Aficionados, and all Wanderers and Seekers.
I came to Locals in October of 2019 after witnessing the whole debacle with Patreon and the site arbitrarily deciding to cut off creators from their income because they found their content offensive. In this case, something Sargon of Akkad has said off-site but Patreon wanted to play the self-righteous prigs that they are and disavow themselves from such association. Dave Rubin & Jordan Peterson saw the writing on the wall and left Patreon and Dave talked about founding Locals. While I joined in October of 2019 it wasn't until May of 2020 that I became active on Rubin Report & Phetasy.
The shift came when I saw more of the turn to censorship that Facebook was all about during the pandemic. By May of 2020 I had had enough and left Facebook behind to give my time to Locals, especially interacting with the Rubin Report & Phetasy communities. I didn't know if it would be like Facebook, which I had been active with for a number of years, but I was looking for something similar without all the censorship and pettiness that has taken over the site in disagreements about the pandemic and the President. Facebook had become tiresome and tedious and a fair amount of people I thought knew me well were appalled when I didn't hop on the herd-thinking and group-feeling endorsed by all the wrong people. I figured I would deal with less of that BS on Locals and I was right.
About July of the year I started interacting with @SEPTUAGENARIAN Sept in my morning posts. It is not always easy to see the flow of those conversations since there were side conversation and offshoots, but it was a great way to get to know Judy and other early birds at the Report. Something similar happened over on Phetasy with the Dawn Patrol and early morning posts. I still think of Al who dubbed that name and hope he is well. I met some great people in those early hour conversations at Rubin Report & Phetasy, and it was Sept who inspired me to open Padre's as a place where I could chat with her and others we knew in our morning long form conversations.
Over time we transitioned to using Zoom and I would call Sept every Saturday morning and on holidays to chat with her on the phone. Never long conversations, just touching base, letting her know of my love and checking in on one old tough Biddy. She passed in June of last year, but I still miss her, pray for her and hope she has found the Ultimate Reality on the other-side with a pleasant surprise. I miss her humor, her tenacity and groundedness in common sense. She was fiercely independent and worked hard to make her life in her condo as manageable for herself as possible. While disabled from childhood polio it didn't stop her in the least, in her life story or in her aging years. Polio provided her with challenges, not excuses. That is such a great life lesson. She loved memes and was greatly concerned about the decaying culture and country around us. While still sad at her death, I am ever so grateful to have known her and enjoyed her friendship. I think of her laughter all the time when I see the various meme posted at Padre's and other Local communities and know she would have enjoyed seeing that one.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEPT!!! You are still loved and missed by myself and others. A few photos of Sept and some memes that captured her spirit. We would tease her about the dead bodies in the basement. The last two memes are some of Sept's last sharing's before she began her exit from this side of reality.
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! S.H.I.T - SURE HAPPY ITS THURSDAY! We had a radio personality say that every Thursday when he signed on to his program. It must have stuck for I still remember it to this day. Either way, welcome to a new day, and let's continue our visit with M. Scott Peck's collection of quotes.
Today's section on happiness deals with contentment. One of the things I pray for along with an ever deepening faith is to be reasonably content in my life and in my happenings. I don't want to be complacent, which is very similar to contentment in its origin but yields vastly different fruit. Complacency leads to boredom, which seems to be a major affliction in modern living, whereas contentment leads to gratitude and perspective. Well, it ought to if one is really trying to practice contentment, to take nothing for granted, to name your benefits and blessings, and to strive for growth of virtue rather than the accumulation of MOAR!!!!
MOAR is a pain; Amazon markets MOAR ...
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.”
