Good morning, Digital Neighbors, and happy Tuesday! Yesterday was a bit of a TL;DR experience, so today I’ll just share a few quotes about children. I don’t have any of my own, of course, but I used to love teaching in my early years. I was the fun uncle to all my nieces and nephews — mainly, I think, because every Christmas I got them Nerf guns or squirt guns so they could run around the church grounds shooting one another.
While cell phones going off in church can drive me crazy, babies going off in church make me happy. I see people flirting with the little ones all the time during Mass, and I often tell them afterward that if God was going to take a backseat to anyone, He would prefer it to be a baby. He is the Life-Giver and the Lover of Life. Off to the quotes, my friends!
If you want your children to listen, try talking softly to someone else. — Ann Landers
Cleaning up with children around is like shoveling during a blizzard. — Margaret Culkin Banning
I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them. – Phyllis Diller
By the time a man realizes that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong. — Charles Wadsworth
Happy child - Mugabi Owen - 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.
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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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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.”
