Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Happy Sabbath and Saturday to all you fine souls milling about on Locals and Substack. A morning meditation from Anthony de Mello. Not all of his writings are my cup of tea, but Wellsprings is a book I have returned to often for reflection and meditation. I take all these morning musings as something like a 12-Step program session: take what you like and leave the rest. Some have put me on block or mute at various sites, which I am thankful for as a modern feature. They can enjoy the community without my content interfering or distracting. I have done the same to a few myself. It is one of the best features of more recent social media. I wish they would have had that back in the days of AOL chat rooms. The first rule of the internet: jerks are emboldened by a screen between them and reactive reality. Anywho, off to the morning reflection. It is a tad longer than most morning posts. Have a great Saturday, Digital Neighbors!
THE EXPOSURE
I think of the times I come alive
and the times when I am dead.
I ponder on the features I assume
in moments of aliveness and
in times when I am dead.
Life abhors security:
for life means taking risks,
exposing self to danger,
even death.
Jesus says that those who wish to be safe will lose their lives;
those who are prepared to lose their lives will keep them.
I think of the times
when I drew back from taking risks,
when I was comfortable and safe:
those were times when I stagnated.
I think of other times when I dared to take a chance,
to make mistakes,
to be a failure and a fool,
to be criticized by others,
when I dared to risk being hurt
and to cause pain to others.
I was alive!
Life is for the gambler.
The coward dies.
Life is at variance with my perception
of what is good and bad:
these things are good and to be sought;
these others bad and to be shunned.
To eat of the Tree of Knowing Good and Bad
is to fall from paradise.
I must learn to accept whatever life may bring,
pleasure and pain, sorrow and joy.
For if I close myself to pain
my capacity for pleasure dies
—I harden myself and repress
what I regard as unpleasant and undesirable,
and in that hardness,
that repression, is rigidity and death.
So I decide to taste in all its fullness
the experience of the present moment,
calling no experience good or bad.
Those experiences that I dread—I think of them,
and, inasmuch as I am able, I let them come and stop resisting them.
Life goes hand in hand with change.
What does not change is dead.
I think of people who are fossils.
I think of times when I was fossilized:
no change, no newness, the same old worn-out concepts
and patterns of behavior, the same mentality,
neuroses, habits, prejudices.
Dead people have a built-in fear of change.
What changes have there been in me
over the past six months?
What changes will there be today?
I end this exercise by watching nature
all around me:
so flexible,
so flowing,
so fragile,
insecure,
exposed to death
—and so alive!
I watch for many minutes.
Meditation - Gantas Vaiciulenas - 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
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Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
(See the first comment for the explanation of MOAR. It came up early in the morning chat.)
Good morning, digital neighbors! S.H.I.T - SURE HAPPY ITS THURSDAY! We had a radio personality say that every Thursday when he signed on to his program. It must have stuck for I still remember it to this day. Either way, welcome to a new day, and let's continue our visit with M. Scott Peck's collection of quotes.
Today's section on happiness deals with contentment. One of the things I pray for along with an ever deepening faith is to be reasonably content in my life and in my happenings. I don't want to be complacent, which is very similar to contentment in its origin but yields vastly different fruit. Complacency leads to boredom, which seems to be a major affliction in modern living, whereas contentment leads to gratitude and perspective. Well, it ought to if one is really trying to practice contentment, to take nothing for granted, to name your benefits and blessings, and to strive for growth of virtue...
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.”
