Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community. - Anthony J. D'Angelo
Good Morning Digitial Neighbors! Happy Wednesday ADD Irregulars & WSN Aficionados, Friends & Refugees, Phamily & Misfits, Conversants & Lurkers, Seekers & Wanderers, Early Birds & Later Dayers, and all the rest of ya's that find you way to Locals and these little havens of community, laughter and critical thought.
Are our communities doomed to fail since there is no common understanding of what it means to be caring? While I lean to the right on many issues of culture and politics, I tend to be a live and let live person. You do what you wish as long as there or no overt acts of malice against others, you know the things we used to agree were violent and malicious just a decade or two ago, not hurt feelings. Too often hurt feelings are the result of inflated or fragile hearts/minds that seek more injury in life than understanding of it. Injury and offense trump reason because your victimization card is your passport to uncritical living. Who are all these people of privilege that dare to criticize your life??? Who are all these people that question your new identity and sense of self??? More than likely if they aren't applauding your newfound YOU, they are some sort of ISTS. It really doesn't matter what kind of ISTS you call them, silencing questions and criticisms is the only goal. The only dialogue that occurs is the lecture they provide and the notes you take in your reprogramming. RaceISTS is the most common silencer, but it may be over used losing its dialogue silencing effectiveness. Can anyone be SexISTS anymore or is everyone sexISTS now that we can be any gender designation we desire? Just asking. I can't keep up, in the land of offense, the biggest crybabies call the shots. The DSM just isn't what it used to be.
A live and let live reality can only exist when your neighbors believe in mutual respect, that their rights end where yours begin. So what are signs of actual caring for one another?
1. Actual listening
2. Freedom to question
3. Freedom to disagree
4. Displaying sympathy for the injured (actual, not cry baby hurt feelings)
5. Lost acts of civility - a simple thank you, public displays of patience
6. A willingness to not be easily offended or perpetually offended
7. Avoiding lecture mode when disagreements occur
7a. Not finding your 3 or more other emotional hyenas to mob those who disagree.
7b. Remembering #3 and walking away once the conversation is over.
8. Restoring a real understanding of harm - physical harm surpasses emotional harm, all the time.
9. Common understanding of words & terms, without this all the points above this are moot.
9a. All collectivist thinkers (Marxist, Socialists, Fascists) want to muddy the waters of vocabulary and distort language. We all know this, but it is good to point it out.
9b. Collectivism feels a lot like community, but complete conformity is the ultimate goal of collectivists living. You can be diverse is all the areas that are inconsequential and irrelevant, but not in your thinking.
10. Agreement on what is actually harmful to individuals, agreement on what real victimization is. I know we may never get back to this commonly understood reality. We have been away from it far too long. Perhaps the best we can do is allow individual States to determine what is the law and common understanding of the land like it has happened with abortion.
I know there are other things to add to that list and more clarifications to make, but that would seem to be a good start to restoring some sense of caring in our communities no matter what we believed, who we did or didn't worship and how we wanted to spend our time. Of course I could be completely missing the mark. While I am only a pilgrim in this life, I do care about the communities where I live. I do care about the people I love. I do want to see more caring return to society and less outrage and offense. I know that the outraged and offended cannot be defeated by reason, passivism or ignoring them.
A nice autumn barn and a horse - cheers my friends!
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.”
