Good Morning and Happy New Year Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday ADD Irregulars, WSN Contributors, Friends & Refugees, PHAM & Misfits, Ealy Birds & Later Dayers, Dawn Patrol and Night Owls, Conversants and Lurkers, and all the rest of you Seekers and Wanderers on Locals.
A few words from Arlene, she has some good thoughts to share at the beginning of this New Year. My rambling commentary offered after you appreciate her pearls of wisdom and words of hope. My commentary is probably TL;DR but those of you familiar with me might be tempted to give it go. Enjoy!
TOGETHER
We are in this together.
Everything belongs to all of us:
rough days and rainbows,
dirty wash and sun-drenched skies,
hungry hearts and fall harvests,
angry words and healing prayers.
Whether you put your foot in the water or not,
the waves will roll in and out.
The starling in the snow finds the squirrel’s discarded stash.
Smile.
Breathe.
Life goes on.
Be grateful.
We are in this together.
ARLENE GAY LEVINE
I couldn't agree more with the overall sentiment of Arlene's prose, the human family shares a common space and those with whom we rub elbows are our neighbors even if we fail to recognize them as such. We have far more in common than we realize with our neighbors, but the vast sea of them do not live lives of active engagement, but rather this sleep walking that is modern life. Perhaps it has always been that way throughout history, maybe most people are sleep walking from one day to another without a deeper examination of life, without questioning what their life is, where it is going, ever really wondering what this experience of living is meant to be? As Alasdair MacIntyre states in After Virtue - A Study in Moral Theory “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”
Many do not seem to question the story, their story, the story being sold to us day in and day out by our self-appointed betters and self-anointed superiors. I have ranted about the Cabal on and off here at Locals since I became active in May of 2020. I lurked about for six or so months before contributing to the Rubin Report or Phetasy when I took the step in believing that I could encounter digital neighbors here. Facebook had turned sour and divisive with the 2016 election and the coming of the DON. By April of 2020 the mask was coming off of the Covid narrative with a silencing of any critical thinking or questioning. Conform or you hate Grandma and babies!!!! FB doubled down on selling conformity, group-feeling and herd-thinking. That was the sign that it was time to find different digital neighbors. I am thankful that I did. I do miss the good people I left there, but not the self righteous paternalism of Facebook. Paternalism should be rechristened parentalism, the Nanny State and its operatives want to help you for your own good.
I am not a person of expectation since that too often seems to be a projection of my desires or imaginings rather than a honest assessment of the situation one is given. I am not saying we shouldn't have expectations, but they should be careful considered and adopted before just being assumed and placed upon others. Few things have made me more unhappy in life than the expectations I placed upon family or friends without their awareness, consent or even discussion. The converse is also true. I probably think too often of expectation because I have seen more frustration, sorrow or unneeded misunderstanding arise from it than good.
Sorry for that aside, it is the beginning of a new year so one wonders what it might hold and that is a form of expectation or at least anticipation. And yet anticipation is different from expectation, one it tempted to expect from another, one ought to anticipate for him or herself. "Be prepared" as the Boy Scouts used to say. Is that their motto anymore?
As 2024 prepares to unfold, I pray to surround myself with good neighbors, actual and digital. I am thankful that many of my digital neighbors have become actual friends. Our coffee talk gatherings are about the closest I can get to meeting with friends at a morning diner to chat about whatever comes to mind. We have our set reoccurring talking points and concerns, but we never have a set agenda which is rather refreshing and we wander all over the field on any given morning. I look forward to our conversations, God only knows what the topic will be and I think He is occasionally surprised by them.
As I look beyond the circle of neighbors I do worry about how divided we have become because of the CABAL. They want division, they want discord and they are not afraid of violence and destruction if they think they can keep it from touching them. We frequently mention chaos in our morning chats and those willing to hit the spin cycle on it to achieve their ends. Neighbors, the flock or the mob, are often the same people. Depending on who they are listening to, what they are being fed and how are they are being told to think and feel makes them good neighbors, a friendly flock or an angry mob. Turning the masses into an angry mob is one of the most dangerous things that has happened and will probably happen again.
As 2024 unfolds, I pray we are all good neighbors and prepared ones. We want awareness without obsession, preparedness without paranoia, insight without cynicism, hopefulness without naivety. I am sure there are other balancing pairs out there, feel free to add you own.
I am thankful for good places and good people. My life is incredibly blessed and I am thankful for a sense of peace even if I worry that 2024 will be the great ungluing of society. A final quote for your New Year and a Monday. Enjoy!
Our work-a-day lives are filled with opportunities to bless others. The power of a single glance or an encouraging smile must never be underestimated. - G. RICHARD RIEGER
Photo of "Winter" by Zimen at Ephotozine
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.
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.”
