Good Morning, Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday to all you fine souls who have found your way to these communities I so greatly appreciate. May today be a day of blessing for all of you WSN Curators and ADD Irregulars at Padre’s, you Friends and Refugees on the Report, the first haven of common sense on Locals and finally all you migratory Misfits and Phamily sub-stacking it with my favorite drum majorette at Phetasy. Make her rich!!!
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. - Rachel Carson
As we waltz into the second week of Autumn, I thought it would be a good week to share some quotes about beauty. Of the three transcendentals, beauty is the one that has suffered the least distortion in our culture over the last 50 years. Truth was assaulted first, then goodness and in these most recent years beauty. Beauty is more inherently resistant than truth or goodness, because it can exist independent of our creation or judgment. Recognition of beauty long existed before we could grasp the truth or question what goodness is. All three are essential to the wholeness of humanity, but we have grown so skeptical of the truth and so doubtful of goodness these days. Relativism is corrosive and poisonous. I don’t fault too many relativists, it begins with doubt which is good thing to possess. Healthy doubt leads to questions, conversations, criticism and hopefully conclusions (subject to update when new experience or information is provided.) Lingering doubt, inconclusive doubt, cynical skepticism about everything tends to become corrosive to one’s emotional and mental state. I don’t know how any self-professed relativist can be happy or even reasonably content if nothing really matters than the moment and your preference. I prefer the quest for some absolutes in life without becoming a self-righteous absolutist or a close-minded cultist. Sorry for the side-alley, back to BEAUTY!
While some standards of relational beauty between the genders (both of them) are culturally conditioned, I think beauty in nature and many if not most of the arts are more universal. We know it when we see it, hear it or experience it. Perhaps that is wishful thinking on my part, but beauty goes a long way to healing my soul. I think many people have lost the memory of how powerful beauty is for grounding us and opening us to the wonders of existence. Without trying to sound like too much of an elitist, I would like to think the souls that have gathered around Dave Rubin, Bridget Phetasy and other common sense voices know the importance of beauty and seek if more readily that most. I hope you find some beauty today, in nature, in a friend, through a song or other experience that lifts you above the moments and beyond this day. Prayers & Peace, your friendly neighborhood friar.
Natalie Behn - Unsplash
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.
They pump up the antisemitism in order to gain control. Their actual goal is to take out all of western civilization. Their greatest goal is the United States of America.
So when Americans and Europeans are voting against "Jews" they are actually voting for self-genocide.
The enemy is both evil and clever. They win if you are naive and gullible.
Hate is like an addictive drug. It feels great at first. Ecstatic. Powerful. Makes you want more and more. It becomes all you think about. Then it kills you.
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.”
