Blessed Fourth Sunday of Advent, Digital Neighbors and Friends across Locals and Substack! Today’s messianic title: Radiant Dawn. I imagine that if we were creatures of hearing, sound would matter more than sight. But we are what we are—the darkness holds both wonder and fear. I suspect for our predecessors there were many more dangers and fears of the dark when we were still an option on the food chain for other carnivores. I mean, we can still be on the menu—watch The Ghost and the Darkness or The Grey; we might be on top, but we aren’t unchallenged. Imagine being by your campfire at night and hearing hungry nature out there. Dawn brought degrees of comfort and certainty.
Light—illumination—clarity; or darkness—obscurity—confusion. I know what I prefer more of in my life, even if some of the things clarified to me aren’t to my liking. I used to think that the desire for clarity was sort of a factory setting for us primates, but I am no longer certain of that. A few years ago I had a recurring theme in my sermons about the lies that please us versus the truths that save us. Discernment is essential to distinguishing between the two, since we are so fallible and prone to so many blind spots in our reasoning. Lies that please us will smother the spirit, enslave us, and make us believe that slavery is freedom and that questioning is crazy. There are already too many signs that we have eaten more than our fair share of lies that please us without critically questioning them.
Hard truths that will make you better after struggle are not preferable to soft lies that comfort you into personal abdication and complacent resignation. When I was younger I used to think that was the exception among people—that most of us agree that hard truths are a better path to tread than living with known lies that are pleasing or comforting. I tend to think the opposite now. Many will settle for the lies that please them as long as there is enough comfort and not too much fear. Life will be boring and probably devoid of meaning, but at least there is another distraction of some sort around the corner.
That does not mean that it is all doom and gloom, but if you are a person striving to wrestle with reality instead of ingesting a torrent of lies, you will not have an easy life. A life of faith or at least meaning is a mountain, there is a hard climb to arrive at the summit. No one starts there. Sure, life at the base is comfortable, but the summit has more to reveal to us—about our world, its meaning, and about ourselves as we strive through the ascent. I suspect you all know that—you are here, after all. Any or all of us could have remained on the mushroom-management communities of Big Tech: free to use, but not free to question; free to look like an individual, a person, but don’t think apart from the herd. You have the freedom to conform and comply like a real liberated soul. The BIGS (government & tech) will give you their goodies for free—all you have to do is behave. For the moment we may have a break from un-personing, de-platforming, and personal ruin if you don’t behave, but don’t forget the winter of Sleepy Joe. It can return the next time the Dims or their Repuli-con clones are back in power.
The Radiant Dawn—a new day, new opportunities, the ability to see things clearly, maybe for the first time, or maybe for a renewed round at climbing toward the truths you have discerned in life. Happy climbing, my friends! I hope there is plenty of light in your life to show a clear path forward to your goals. I hope there is plenty of perseverance to keep you focused on the path and the goal, as it is slow and the climb is often hard. You can’t change the past; you can understand it, integrate it, atone for it, but you can’t change anything about it except how you think and feel about it. The radiant dawn can bring clarity to your future and open the possibility of seeing the past in a new light as well. Faith is always about clarity for me. It is not an escape from reality; it is not about just hoping for Heaven and a benevolent God at the end of the story. It is about the climb and all that I will experience and learn while I am pursuing the Truth Who is. Blessed Sunday, Digital Neighbors!
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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Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Monday to all! I hope you had a great weekend. I had a great one, blessing the new bookstore on Saturday afternoon and dropping by Black Light Bingo in the evening. Sunday was a beautiful day of prayer, worship, and fellowship. I had lunch with our music director, talking about the future Mass schedule and music at our two parishes. The rest of the day was pee-diddling at home, taking Rylee for a walk, catching a nap, working on a survey for the faithful, and nothing too demanding. It was a good day of rest.
A couple of quotes, something beautiful from nature, and goodbye to all you digital neighbors! Have a great Monday!
“Lord, it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.” – Yoko Ono (Almost ...
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.”
