Good afternoon Digital Neighbors, ADD Irregulars, WSN Niche’ Curators and Crusty Curmudgeons & Curmudgeonettas!!!  It will be so good to be back at home with you here at @ Padre’s.  You have been missed over these days of Lent. While I was absent from the community, you were all in my prayers. I have lurked on the fringes to check in on the community a few times throughout Lent, but other than the one post I have done a good job abstaining from the daily flow of on-line life.    I was not completely away from the internet during these days, I chose to partake of Megan Kelly’s morning update and Victor Davis Hanson’s Daily Signal to keep minimally aware of things.  I also had news from 1440 and the Loop in my e-mail to keep me from being brainwashed by the Huffington Post which is the news provider for AOL. But 10 to 20 minutes of news as opposed to an hour, or more was a major change for me.   All in all being away from constant saturation in the news and current events were a net positive.  I missed our morning chats, but I have not missed the intrusive nature and preoccupation with news and current events that was becoming my norm prior to Lent.

            Do I still care about current events and news? Of course, but I am hoping that this period of fasting and abstaining from the “sky is falling” nature of the news will help me moderate it more in my future consumption and conversation.  It is hard to find the balance between being informed & engaged without being consumed and mired in the news. The culturally compromised have nothing more meaningful to talk about than news and politics.  I am thankful that while we at times have a heavy vibe of news, politics and current events at Padre’s, especially after coming off of a national election, that is not all we discuss or share here. I am so very thankful for our humor and varied interests and hobbies we share.  I am looking forward to more moderation with politics and news as I move further away from the election.  I still have no expectations when it comes to our posts and conversations, but the day-to-day stuff of our lives as digital neighbors matters as much if not more than whatever good articles or news events we might share.  That is just my reflection of abstaining from the past norm, I have no idea what the new norm will look like, but I have hopes of it being more personal and expansive than it was prior to Lent.

But, my main intent with this first post of Easter is about the most fundamental awareness regarding life.  Life is either a gift or a given. How we live in that awareness makes all the difference.  I knew it before Lent, but more silence, prayer and reading have doubled down on that awareness and further enriched it for me.  It is something I strive to remember and abide in each day. It is too easy to forget when I get overwhelmed by the present moment.  Life as a gift is the farthest thing from a pollyannish look at life.  Life as a gift still has all the trials, sorrows and disappointments that any life would have. Life as a gift comes with fundamental and foundational points that anchor me to reality as I experience it.

1.    If life is a gift, I believe there is a Giver.

2.    From as far as I can tell, much of my life and goodness is unmerited.

3.    Since the Giver has blessed me so, how can I not respond with gratitude?

4.    Upon seeking the Giver, I believe that oddly enough He has chosen to communicate to a particular people (the Jews) at a particular time culminating in the sending of His Word, Jesus Christ.

5.    The story of Christ is not something I passively review and reflect upon, but something I am actively invited to experience and embrace.

6.    I don’t know how the Giver calls everyone else, but I know how He called me, and how I arrived where I am. I wouldn’t boast of 100% clarity, but rather 90% trust in Him.  The last 10% is still being worked out it as the Giver tries His best to make me the Tom He created me to be.

7.    I am so profoundly thankful that the Giver and His Son called me to priesthood, may daily life is built upon gratitude/thanksgiving, the Eucharist.  Celebrating Jesus as Immanuel in the Sacrament is what my life is all about, everything else flows from that.

I look forward to catching up with all of you tomorrow morning and in the days to come. I will be sharing the morning invites with our neighbors at Rubin Report and Phetasy in the hopes that some of them might want to pop in on Padre’s or our Coffee Talks & Speakeasies to see what it is about and connect with the same wonderful souls I have met since joining Locals.  See you in the morning my dear friends.

Sorry, Y'All - I Need a Cigarette and a Cocktail After Watching That Oval Office Manfest

GAH-RRRROOOWWWLLLLLLLL!

I just can't even with the massive overdose of testosterone flooding the airwaves.

What the hell has come over this country and THANK GOD FOR IT.

It's like brother Bingley says:

I mean, to be perfectly honest, you could kind of see where it got off on the wrong foot right from the get-go.

Sweater Boy showed up to the TRUMP White House in his sweater boy outfit, which President Trump was quick to point out.

HOLY CRAP

His schitck is great for Europe and campaigning with Kamala at Pennsylvania bomb factories, but dear Lord.

Put a suit on, dude. Bomb-free zone and all that.

All I can think is that the man has become so used to dealing with American simps like POTATUS, Kamala, Winken Blinken, Snek Sullivan, and a fawning media, that the gravitas of being the president of a country engaged in real - and in his case, desperate - diplomacy to save that country got lost in the celebrity and check-grabbing glad-handing.

Zelensky demanded, Zelensky received wherever he went, barely a question asked. And many times, if it was, it was shouted down by 'TOOL OF PUTIN!' accusations or worse.

It's gotten pretty tiresome.

As was watching our elected and unelected officials scurry around in obsequious respect to a man who owed this country for his very survival yet had the unmitigated nerve to publicly chastise anyone who wanted an accounting of where all the largesse was going, check after check after, oh, look - yet another check.

HOW DARE YOU

Did no one on his staff alert him that there were two different animals in the White House now? Two thoroughly American alpha males?

I can only assume his staff doesn't know what that is and didn't think to warn the boss because he walked straight into an ass-whooping that he brought on himself (Ed's got the whole excruciating thing here).

Now, I realize European manners are a whole different universe than ours, and I GET IT, DUDE. I really do. I understand this is a life-or-death thing for you.

There's been too much death.

However, I cannot recall a single instance in any of the meetings with EU members where Zelensky started a peevish argument with his hosts in full view of the press and right in the living room after his arrival.

Please correct me if I'm wrong - I don't think I am.

Judging by the Ukrainian ambassador's face during the set-to, I know I am.

Vice President Vance is a keeper. He shot right into the middle of Zelensky's excruciating (that's the only word) opening, deflecting much of the Ukrainian's grandstanding for the cameras and several times pointing out that the litigation belonged in the conference room, not in the Oval Office.

I do not understand what Zelensky thought he was going to accomplish.

It was starting to look like Zelensky was wondering, too.

But he really should swear under his breath when he's the one who started the whole thing in front of the cameras.

J.D. also pinned Zelensky, as he worked himself up attacking the Trump plans, if he'd ever once during the meeting told President Trump 'thank you' for what this administration had already sent.

The media sailed in to give Zelensky a little boost that was quickly shot down.

Hundreds of billions.

President Trump, who had held himself out of the JD-Zelensky back and forth with remarkable restraint, finally blew and then said, 'It's going to be awfully tough to do business like this.'  The press conference ended as did any discussions. 

Zelensky was informed by his staff that he could leave the White House, like, STAT.

YOU HAVE NO CARDS

Zelensky's been playing a bluff hand with a blind eye since Trump got elected, and it just bit him big time.

I mean, l when you even lose Lindsey Graham?

...“Americans witnessing this would not want Zelenskyy to be their business partner including me. I've never been more proud of Trump for showing the American people and the world, you don't trifle with this man.”

“Vance was awesome!”

This isn't Zelensky's former Sugar Daddy's White House.

As a president himself, the least he should have done was show some manners until the doors shut behind the last reporter's ass.

He would have saved himself the all-American FAFO lesson in diplomatic etiquette of a lifetime.

I'll bet he wishes he'd thought of that.

Know what I mean?