Good morning, digital neighbors! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Welcome to day 10 of our Christmas Season, which ends for most on the 6th of January and the Feast of Epiphany, but Catholics push it further to the Baptism of the Lord, which is January the 11th this year! Buckle up, buttercup! Ten lords a-leaping reminds us of the Ten Commandments and God’s rules for our relationship with Him and one another. Many carp at them, but it is hard to argue for a better foundation for a spiritual and moral life. While I would love to preach on the commandments, we are here to talk about other things that I love: words, quotes, and photography. I really love my faith and role-playing games too, but you need to pray and worship with me for a good dose of the first and game with me for the second. I love stories—the REAL one and so many imagined ones. There are too many worlds of imagination that I have visited and loved in books, movies, and games. Onward to words!
I do enjoy words—the play on words, the obscure words, and the often-forgotten words in our vocabulary. It is an odd thing, since I am terrible at grammar and not any better at proofreading. Of late, Grok has been lending a hand with punctuation, spelling, and grammar but leaves my style and writing habits intact. You can, of course, ask it to rewrite how you say things, make it more polished or with a different flair, but then it doesn’t sound so much like yourself. Also, Grok seems to repeat phrases that it finds interesting or fun; ask it to write a paragraph or two and it’s like some college student with a handy thesaurus in tow, trying to make their writing sound more intellectual by using obscure words. I like obscure words, but if you don’t really use them as part of your ordinary vocabulary, so much for authenticity. I try to write like I talk. What you read is pretty much how I sound in real life. I probably have a preaching voice and persona that is more motivational or inspirational than I am conversationally, but it is still mostly me. I tend to speak more freely here and with less of a filter. I do my best to exercise tact as a person of consideration. Once people know my vibe in writing if they find me offensive or boring, they can just happily ignore me while they go elsewhere. I can’t imagine going on-line looking or hoping to be offended, there are few things more retarded. I think some use anger as a replacement for excitement and meaning in their life, poor substitute. Sorry for that aside, just trying to make sense of the perpetually offended and waiting to be offended adherents and advocates of humanity.
In 2026, I want to have more fun with words, more reflection on quotes, and more wonderful photographs curated from the internet. I try my best to attribute the photographer and source when possible. I am sure I will still have my occasional rants about the Cabal and everything I despise about it, but I am trying my best to remain informed, engaged, and responsive without being consumed, compromised, or broken.
Your word for the day: ABDOMINOUS
Abdominous – big- or pot-bellied. An abdominous person is literally full of their belly. Why does Grimace from the old McDonald’s commercials come to mind? Abdominous seems a fitting word especially after the holiday glut. I know I need to shed my extra pounds. If you are thinking of losing some pounds, I hope you find a sustainable lifestyle change that allows you to find a healthy weight and maintain it. It is not easy; I have yo-yoed for too many years—a horrible dance of loss and gain. As I prepare to cruise into my 60th year of existence, I don’t want to remain the same person I have been for the last few years, nor do I want to do another season of yo-yo loss and gain. I want to find a sustainable lifestyle (much more disciplined and intentional than the last 3 years or the last 30) and commit to living it. It will mean more NOs than I have chosen to embrace in the past few decades. NO sucks. But so do all the things that come with being a lard-butt—well, to be accurate, a lard-gut. I want to prefer better health over an indulgent life. I said for much of 2025 that many do not want to be healthy, they just don’t want to be sick. I want to leave those ranks and strive for health. Exercise for the mind, diet for the body. Neither really appeals to me, but neither does all the illness that accompanies too much Tom vs. gravity. Less of me is better for all of me. Ain’t gonna be no lords a-leaping with an abdominous figure! Happy Saturday, my friends!
Grok generated abdominous lords a leaping, many deftly defying gravity!
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.
Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Blessed Sunday to all your fine digital neighbors scattered across the internet. If you want to harvest joy, cultivate gratitude. Even if you don’t believe in God and you just happened upon your life, gratitude for the giftedness of it all is the seedbed for joy. Without the work and effort of sustained gratitude, our joy will be random and happenstance. It will be more of a fleeting experience in life rather than a sustained one.
For Disciples, joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and a choice we must make daily. It never means we ignore the challenges and difficulties in life, but we choose what we will allow to possess our heart and command our attention. It is one of the real differences between those striving for spiritual maturity and fullness in Christ and those who settle for less. Those who settle for less will be blown around by their feelings and unexamined impulses. No one can ever claim complete self-possession and fullness in Christ (perhaps a ...
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.”
