GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE

THIS IS YOUR
INVITATION!

We're trying an experiment here.  Since the fine mess which is your life and ours is often where instances of good news are to be found, we invite you to send us instances of good news in your own daily life. 

Give us a description of the (often small and easily overlooked) events in your life that give you reason to hope for our battered world.  It might be on the order of the proverbial Boy Scout helping the little old lady across the street.  It might be an instance in which you or someone you observe has a significant change of heart for the better.  It might be an example of some random act of kindness . . . a drive-by blessing.

This is a place for some good news . . . the sort of news that doesn't depress . . . that, instead, encourages.

No, we haven't gone over to that seductive, Dark Side theory that the mass media are in a vast conspiracy to propagate "secular" values and that we should therefore ignore it. 

Folks who say that are also, generally, opposed to the methodology of science and its findings, prefer ideology to facts, and are of a generally anti-intellectual bent.*  Among their number are climate change deniers,** flat earthers, Biblical literalists and, often, people who find it convenient thereby to rationalize their bigotries.  (The rest of us have a rather more difficult time rationalizing our own.) 

So we encourage you to stay well-informed by reading and tuning into respectable news sources.  Among our favorites are PBS, NPR, The Washington Post, The Week.  (You'll notice that Fox News is not on that list.

F.O.X.  N.E.W.S.

Fomenting Outrageous Xenophobia; Nurturing Everyone's Worst Sins.)

But here's the thing, the media focuses on "bad news" because that attracts viewers, listeners and readers.
When the media have put more "good news" into their reporting, their audience has shrunken.

One reason bad news sells is the fact that human beings are evolutionarily hard-wired to pay attention to the negatives in life.  After all, that's where the threats and dangers lurk.  Deep in our brains, the fight-or-flight arousal system constantly scans for such things.  It's sworn oath is to keep us safe.  We wouldn't have survived as a species or as individuals without that capacity.

But if that's the only news we take in, day in and day out, we can become overly agitated, on guard, even paranoid.  Sometimes, to deal with our resulting hyper-anxiety we go on a search for scapegoats to blame for our distress. Eliminate the scapegoat and away goes the anxiety . . . or so the illogic (sick logic) goes.  In the process, we can begin to oppose and destroy many of the hard-won advances of civilization. 

(The archetypal example of this scapegoating in our era is Germany in the late 1930s when, beset by enormous economic problems, Adolph Hitler rose to power on a "law and order" platform that also featured identifying Germany's Jewish population as "the problem."  His (final) solution?  Death camps like Auschwitz.)

We need good news to balance the bad news . . .
and, in fact, it's all around us . . . like dandelions!
And that's where you come in!

So what's with these dandelions? 
Find out by going to the link
at the bottom of this page.

What we are seeking are examples of a mature faith being lived out . . . and the more non-religious the setting the better!  By "a mature faith" we mean persons of whatever religious . . . or non-religious . . . persuasion who somehow express compassion, a commitment to restorative justice and mercy, hospitality to the stranger and the marginalized, grace under pressure, and forgiveness of self and others.  While mature religion seeks and encourages a transformation toward these ends, one need not be "religious" to exemplify them.  The good news you find won't necessarily be in religious settings.

So be on the lookout for this sort of good news and send it to us!

If we use your submission, we may need to edit it for length (although our own style is so wordy, perhaps that won't happen!)  We will not share your email address with anyone and you won't hear back from us unless it's in connection with your submission, or you invited us to correspond.

Tell us if you wish to have your first and/or last name mentioned as
"Submitted by . . . ."  Otherwise, "Anonymous" will have submitted it.

 
              Click here to discover what's with these dandelions!


____________________

* In its 2012 Platform, the Texas Republican Party wrote the following:
"Knowledge-Based Education - We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification),  critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."  Texas Source 

** The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, has called her church to action in behalf of working to limit climate change, and criticized the issue of denying the reality of that change is a moral issue.  (See a video and full text of her address to her church' climate conference. In an interview appearing in The Guardian, she advanced arguments why denying climate change is a moral issue and that to deny its reality is immoral.

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