Season’s Greetings – Good News

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – 1863

My friend Garrett sent a season’s greeting email to me this morning mentioning among other things that he hadn’t seen a holiday posting to the blog. My blog production has lagged this year. I could blame it on our move but there may be more in play here. I often find myself without a burning desire to comment and I have found that there is nothing so difficult as writing when you have nothing to say. (There are those who maintain that I have nothing to say even when I THINK I have something to say!) One of the writings that I normally undertake at this time of year is the update letter that we enclose with our Christmas card. I dutifully set out to create that document a couple of weeks ago, quite proud of myself for getting it done PRIOR to the 24th which is when it normally goes into the mail. I reported on the happenings in our family, with a somewhat extensive section on the move which occupied our lives from May until October.

Janice typically reviews and edits my work before printing and sending. But I was taken aback this year when she VETOED the letter! I asked which sentences or paragraphs needed amendment. She said, “All of them.” She then shocked me even more by volunteering to prepare the letter herself. This would be a serious disruption of the holiday division of labor that we have painstakingly negotiated over our decades of marriage. I do the letter and print it, SHE selects the photo and gets that printed at Walmart, etc. etc. It was clear to me that there must be something pretty egregiously wrong in the document for her to propose this unprecedented action. I asked if she could describe where I was going wrong. She said that the letter was no fun and had way too much complaining. There was no GOOD NEWS in it.

I hate it when she is right. At our Christmas Eve service last night, Pastor Brett had a six-word sermon. The six words were – “GOOD NEWS, GREAT JOY, ALL PEOPLE.” Janice was right in reminding me that our friends and loved ones don’t need to hear bad news about our move (and by the way that pain was TEMPORARY). They are actually more like me – they want to hear GOOD NEWS that makes them happy. Well, I can cut out the long and sad stories about the lost stuff, the closing difficulties, etc. etc. but I would argue that bringing good news these days is not that easy (see Israel-Gaza-Hamas, Russia-Ukraine, conflicts in Sudan, Somalia, and other countries). And how about our friends, one of whom is in home hospice care while her husband was simultaneously in the hospital having lung surgery, or our friend who is still recovering from a brain injury from this summer while her husband is in the hospital for colon surgery? There is a lot of bad news to pick from.

It really is THE question. Where IS the good news? Well, our son-in-law Jake traveled three weeks to India and China this summer and he came back safe and sound. And so did our son-in-law Nick, our daughter-in-law Stephanie, our daughter Melissa, our son Ian, and the whole Olson family. It seems that one of our kids is ALWAYS in the air somewhere. It’s GREAT news when they return home safely. But we don’t very often note that and give thanks. And there was lots more good news than that. I guess my point is that there are bad things happening but so many more GOOD things happening as well. What will we focus on?

I choose to believe that there is a Greater Power, and that despite the sadness that sometimes threatens to overcome us, because HE is still alive and running the universe, ultimately the good news will far outweigh the bad. Or as Longfellow said in the poem he wrote at a particularly low point during the Civil War corresponding with a particularly low point in his personal life, “God is not dead nor doth he sleep, The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail with peace on earth, good will towards men.”

May you find good news of great joy this Holiday Season – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!