Jake reading the newspaper
Sitting on the wooden steps Aaron and Ethan handcrafted 4 years ago for the recycle trailer; Jake is “reading” the Sunday comics, while waiting to recycle at our Church. When we work the recycle trailer my children love to find the Sunday comics and look at the pictures. The older children actually read the comics. The comics seem to be the best thing about the newspaper these days. There is so much negative media, murders, crimes, deaths all the bad occurrences locally splashed across the pages. Where is all the good news?
Did the “good news” end 2000 years ago with the crucifixion of Christ or is that when it first began?
There is good news, locally as well as nationally but for whatever reasons, most likely ratings, the negative is reported more prevalently. It’s that morbid curiosity that keeps people coming back to watch the news, listen to the newscaster and to subscribe to the paper. So many people would like to see the “good news” and if you look you can find it; it is in there tucked into many different sections. The “good news” is taken for granted and not celebrated but it is the backdrop of our lives; when our children smile, laugh and play together without fighting, when our spouse kisses us goodbye, hello or goodnight, when a friend offers to do another friend a favor without hesitation, when a great grandma gets her goodbye hug, when a teacher says “That’s correct!”, when a greeter says “Have a great day.”, when drivers let other drivers merge without throwing a fit, when we say thank you. All those actions are the stories of the good news!
However at the end of the day when we are on the phone with our friends or talking to our spouse or relatives do we tell them, “The clerk at the grocery store said thank you today.”? Do we tell them someone let me merge onto the expressway or that someone opened the door for me when my hands were full today? Probably not because that doesn’t seem “news worthy” to talk about. It is because the “good news” is the backdrop of our lives it does not stand out as different or exciting but it does get tucked into the back pages of our memories and it does set the example of how we are to act and treat others.
There sits Jake looking at the comics, the “good news” of the newspaper. But the “good news” of this picture is not in the newspaper it is tucked into the backdrop. It is the silly look upon Jake’s face that made you smile today. Without knowing it we spread the “good news” every day whether it goes reported or not!
