good news and bad news

The news hasn’t been good for quite some time. In fact, it has been so bad for so long for so many that it has taken much of the joy out of the arrival of spring—and that’s saying something. There has been news of the conflict in Libya, the earthquake in New Zealand, the tsunami and the threat of a nuclear meltdown in Japan. Closer to home, we received word of the loss of seven children in a house fire, the death of the mother of nine in a car crash, another soldier lost in combat. The height and depth and breadth of grief and suffering has been monumental. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes wonder how life goes on for any of us…why the Earth doesn’t somehow spin off her axis and end it all.

Those of us who have been spared—meaning those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to carry on with our lives as usual—are nonetheless affected by what we hear and read and witness in the media. But our collective sighs do nothing to console the victims of tragedy, and the outpouring of aid does little to ease the sorrow. So the whole world aches and throbs at the plight of the newsmakers.

Still…the sun rose in the East right on schedule this morning and you can count on it to set in the West tonight. The robins are back and the grass is already starting to turn green. People are venturing outdoors again and there are children on the playground, proof that life--for some of us--goes on. And that’s pretty good news to me.

I hope your news is good news today.

*

“The bad news is:

there is no key to the universe.

The good news is:

it was never locked.”

--unknown--

*

In my next post I'll tell you what I learned at the Write Stuff Writers Conference at http://www.glvwg.org/  next weekend.

jan