Good morning, dear digital neighbors, and happy Monday! Greetings and salutations to all you fine souls at The Rubin Report, over at Phetasy, and milling around at Padre’s. May this week of Thanksgiving give you reason to reflect on—and be truly thankful for—all the blessings in your life. If there seems little to be thankful for as you read this, know that at least you have the freedom to venture forth on the internet and connect with people of similar interests or shared desires. Heck, some of them might even care to know you and perhaps form a friendship. Time will tell, but connecting with good people is a blessing, and as we get older, it seems to happen less and less often.
Aging should not be an experience of only losing old friends and becoming increasingly lonely or solitary. Solitude is good—we need to befriend silence and the gift of being alone from time to time—but living a solitary life rarely brings out the best in us. Without at least a couple of treasured friends to keep us balanced and call out our bullshit, we are likely to start believing all our own opinions are undisputed facts.
Sadly, there are many who gather for groupthink and herd-feel on a regular basis, where there is little questioning of opinions, variance of thought, or wondering if there might be more. Churches were guilty of collecting those types for centuries, but since the abandonment of religion after World War II, it has been replaced by the Cabal. The Cabal collects these mindsets like Beanie Babies in the ’90s. Don’t worry—one day they’ll be worth BIG BUCKS!!!
I don’t get the test-pattern people—those with no interior dialogue, no reflection, no wondering or questioning what they know, and no humble acknowledgment of how much they don’t know. I don’t think the test-pattern people are inherently evil, just easily led and manipulated. Their sense of belonging is always group-oriented and security-minded. Those aren’t bad tendencies, but one can do a whole lot of evil in the name of the group and for the sake of security. I don’t give religion a pass for exploiting this trend among humanity, but for all the evil it has done over the last thousand years, Leftist communal thinking passed it on the outside lane in just a century of murder and cultural destruction—and they aren’t finished. Friends and experiences that make you think and laugh, ponder and wrestle with ideas, are among the best friends and experiences to have.
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.
Blessed Sabbath and Happy Saturday to all of you digital neighbors scattered across the internet. In Cath-O-landia we are celebrating the Solemn Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since about the 5th century the devotion has been recognized in various communities within the Church. By the time of St. Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure it was a widespread devotion and belief among the faithful.
In short, at the moment of her death, the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven. Our Orthodox brothers and sisters speak of the Dormition (the “falling asleep”) of the BVM, whose soul was received into Heaven at death and whose body was translated there and reunited with her soul. I am not sure how many, if any, outside of Catholicism and Orthodoxy celebrate it, since it is not explicitly in the Bible. Some see it as “Mary worship,” and sadly there are disciples who mistakenly or errantly place too much emphasis on the BVM and lose sight of the fact that ...
The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
