all depends on what you seek

Don't you get sick of hearing bad news? I mean, I know that terrible things happen and evil people exist, but there is another side of the coin that seems neglected by the media lately. What if they made a rule that for every criminal featured on the news they had to also run a story about a nice person doing kind acts or someone who overcame negative circumstances to pour out positive energy into the world. 

Finding these stories became my new mission a few Sundays ago. There I was at the gym, innocently chugging away on the treadmill. On that machine, you can't help but watch TV, because a bank of six huge screens constantly glares at you on eye level. That day, the news was the killings in Syria. Every time, I looked up, I was assaulted with dead or seizing bodies, many of them children. If I tried to avert my eyes to another screen, the images would appear on that channel. This went on for nearly an hour. I couldn't help but think how the parents of those poor children would feel about their precious babies' lifeless images being flaunted in such a way. It seemed so wrong and disrespectful to those families, while giving overwhelming levels of attention to their killers. 

I decided to go the other way: to find good people and kind acts to write about for my next DMN column. Plenty of people are out there quietly working to do the right thing day after day. These are the folks we need to hear more about. In my prayer and meditation time a few days later, I asked God to show me who to write about. I stumbled on just such a person at 8:45 that very morning at an estate sale. It was weird. The more we talked, the more I sensed a neon "Pick Me" sign flashing above her head. I wonder if, by revealing her so quickly, God was making a point that miscreants, who get all the media play, are rare, while positive folks, who you rarely hear about, are all around us.

My new friend's name is Becky. Her story is interesting and inspiring. She invited me into her home to interview her last week. She even let me take pictures of her cool collections and decorating. These shots are from her house. I am working on the article now. Of course I am nervous about doing a good enough job to get it accepted. I always worry about that. Maybe if I didn't, I wouldn't try so hard, so perhaps the un-confident approach has its merits. Anyhow, if the article gets run, I'll post a link to it here. Please send me all your good vibes as I work on it this week.

Let us be thankful for the goodhearted folks among us and hope that every seed of kindness that manages to get planted grows.