Good News!

18/10/10 | Posted by Poppy

Last week was a week of good news with the sucessful rescue of 33 men from a mine in Chile. It was a nail biting time, but all the men arrived safely on the surface and the whole world seemed to join in with the celebrations of the Chilean people. But why don't we here more good news?

 Good News!

I was so inspired by the team work of the people getting the miners out of the place where they were stuck and the joy on the faces of the families who were reunited with their husbands, fathers and brothers, that I thought I’d look out for good news in my everyday life. I found lots of goodness and kindness but it was very low key. For example, on Friday it was a tough day at work but two people rallied around to help. If it hit the newspapers the headline of ‘team admins sort out unofficial reception rota to cope with staff shortages’ is a bit dull but at the time those two people helping out when they didn’t have have to made all the difference to an stressful day.

Looking around the office there were other bits of goodness happening. One woman disappeared for half an hour and it turned out she was comforting a collegue who was finding the return to work after her husband’s death hard. It was just tea and sympathy but it meant a lot to both of them. Someone brought in biscuits to share as she knew that Friday was going to be a busy day and others spent more time than they really should with clients who were stressed or whose agression masked deep unhappiness. It was everyday goodness but it was happening.

When you start to think about it kindness and the unselfish actions that we call goodness are all a bit odd. At the heart of this goodness is thinking about someone other than yourself and why would we ever do anything other than look to ourself and our family?

But even if it is odd we are used to it being around in the care and concern of neighbours and friends and in the time people give to volunteering or donating time and money to charities at home and abroad. Although goodness is small and often everyday, it does take real effort. It would be so much easier to just get on with what I have to do and not think about other people. Unkindness is easy, but kindness means putting myself out a bit. So that anyone does it is surprising but it strangely isn’t. Kindness is mostly normal and we are used to people doing those small everyday things that make us part of a bigger community - caring for each other in tiny almost insignificant ways.

The work involved in getting those miners to the surface was amazing and worth celebrating. We don’t recognise goodness often enough.

Perhaps goodness goes unnoticed most of the time because it is so mundane and ordinary.

Perhaps it is small and ordinary because it is difficult.

Getting miners out of the ground cost millions. Being kind to your neighbour and loving them as yourself as Jesus commanded means going against our human nature. So maybe there should be headlines celebrating all the small things where good conquers laziness and indifference and selfeshness.

So what are your headlines? Who will you be kind to today?

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