Good Morning Friends & Digital Neighbors! Happy Tuesday Beloved Supporters, Happy Members, Come-along Lurkers and all the rest of you merry lot! More on imagination as we continue thoughts and quotes on such a vital gift for humanity. Most of this week will be the fun side of imagination, but today we detour momentarily to acknowledge that imagination as an adult is usually anything but fun. The "adult" imagination is often a different experience than our childhood musings.
"We went into the hospital for a routine procedure, my husband has cancer in his gall bladder." I could hear the shock and fear in her voice. Cancer - Death, the two seem inseparable in our adult imagination. I first assured her of my prayers, my availability for visits and support and then I cautioned her against letting the "adult" imagination take her to very dark and hopeless places. I said the temptation to know as much as possible about the risks involved, the signs of cancer having spread elsewhere (pancreas) will not give her the assurance or confidence she thinks it will. It may for some, but I have met few of them who can take such information and not let it feed fears rather than hopes.
Adult imagination - darker, more real - more inescapable for so many of us whatever the current boogie-man might be in our wheel-house of addiction, disorder or disease. The weight of such imagination is real, but its power need not be as great or overwhelming as we give it permission to come. We often long for the imagined monsters of childhood that were not real and could be chased away at the break of day or the sound of a parents voice.
I don't know a good cure-all - I know mine. I can't say it would work for everyone. I think about death probably everyday, my death, my sudden passing or gradual deflation like an old party balloon. I think about the possible trials I may face from heart disease, a stroke, cancer or a host of other things "out there" waiting to change my life to a more difficult path. I think about the surrender to things I cannot control but only try to accept with as much hope as possible. Not a rosy picture for Tommy-boy, but a likely one. I just hope I am not a crab-ass who can't handle change, or a perpetual complainer of ills or bitcher at life. I putting my poker chips on crazy old fart and certified loon.😉
I have had a privileged seat at the ring-side of life from it beginnings, through life's changes and many times at its endings. I have been in many rooms with a stranger or parishioner at their passing, some peacefully drifting off into the bliss of eternity others whose bodies did not want to go even if their person had long since left. Sometimes my presence there is the best I can offer, not all are receptive to the current chapter of reality for their loved one, especially in the cases of the sudden and tragic. The Big Guy can handle the anger with patience, so can I. When nudged by the Spirit - there are offers of prayers, invitations of trust, pouring out of sorrows and grief.
Lots of funerals as you might imagine (no pun intended). 😜 It is a great time of prayer and hope for me and I try to share that with the family. I believe in the Love that is on the other side, the healing that awaits those receptive to it, the correcting of so many of life wrongs, real or perceived as such. If my atheistic friends are right, we just go off to be dust in a box, ashes in an urn or poured in some meaningful location and we hope our impact lives on it others. I hope they are sadly mistaken, but we don't have anyone back from the dead to tell us of the experience. Of course, there is One, but like the Athenians listening to St. Paul, it seems mightily convenient that this "Risen One" is not around anymore for those seeking something more concrete and certifiable.
@ Padre's Only Addition - Faith makes all the difference. When all of the above is put under its umbrella, all things are good, bearable and a cause of gratitude if I but trust.
Ramble on - thank you Led Zepplin and thank you if you read all of that. I have been up since 12:45 AM for weekly Adoration in the 1 AM slot. I cashed in my daily chips at 8 and got a good four hours of sleep. There will be a nap this afternoon ad decreed by Pharaoh. Imagination is funny as the song goes. Such a good one. Happy Tuesday Friends!
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! Hey there, all you Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers, PHAM & Misfits, Questioners and Critical Thinkers, ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, Curmudgeons & Curmudgeonessas! Happy Friday!
It has been a broiler of a week down here in the foothills of the Ozarks. I worked one summer for the street department of Elsberry, the little speed-trap town that was my childhood home. It was one of the hottest and most physical jobs I ever worked — mainly laying tar on streets, lots of mowing, and the occasional day in the water treatment plant if there was rain.
MF’er Mike was one of the full-time guys working with us college students, and he prefaced every sentence with profanity (which I have a high tolerance for), but it does get tiresome. I think of him occasionally on these sweltering days because he called it swamp-ass weather. We all knew what he meant by the end of the morning after working outside in the heat. Well, ...
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.”
