Hi Faerenach,

Mostly from other people who tell me what their week has been like.

Sometimes they are telling about something positive and other times something negative.  Whether the story is positive or negative there is usually present that glimmer of hope, hope that the positive will expand and envelope others or hope that the negative will end or be diminished by others.

And when all else fails.  I have three dogs who wag their tails when I walk in the door even if the sky is falling everywhere else.  If I sit for a while they will tell me in their own ways what good news it is that I have returned home.

And somedays, just walking through the door is a feat of no small means.

Grace and peace to you.

John

It's odd. I have a tremendous sense of positive excitement about a churning up of goodness in so much of what I see and hear: I get my "good" news from: first and foremost (but least helpfully to others, I guess) from my wife and our relationship: our love continues to deepen). Then from friendships, from nature (beaches and woods, especially, recharge my feelings of joyful awe) and -- finally -- from the news (in a kind of inverted way: the fact that more and more people are seeing that there are fundamental flaws in the way we have been living, and complaining about it and seeing these flaws as 'newsworthy' is an indication that REAL change may come.)

Faerenach,

It is all around me. Now, that does not mean I am a Pollyanna or deluded about what all is happening in the world, It just means I can see both.

I can rattle off Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Korea... but I do so knowing there are 192-195 countries in the world (depending on whom you ask). I worked domestic violence and knew most marriages were loving.

It likely saved me, hope,  and knowing there was good in the world. I always knew that whatever I saw there was something else. My mom was violent, but not all moms were. If that makes sense....

People are out there being jerks to each other. But there are people being good to each other, too. When the shingles ripped up on our roof during a storm this fall, someone drove by and climbed the ladder and shingled a section of the roof for us. Just a couple weeks ago, we stopped to help someone who drove off the road in the first storm of the year. A neighbour drives by and hits the end of our drive with the plow, etc....

Illness changed me. I notice the good stuff. I pay attention. I don't take for granted. If I feel I am losing that, I grasp for it. I meditate to clear myself and can see things anew.

There was a lady getting chemo who had half her young, beautiful face removed and she said, "well, at least it wasn't my good side".

Where do I look? All around me. I watch news that offers balance, read papers with balance... it is a choice. I could just go for doom and gloom. What you look at, or look for, is often what you find.

Entertainment Weekly .

Do you think, then, that people read doom and gloom type news because they don't bother looking for good news?  Or do you think they just don't know where to look?

There is so much good news in our lives that people won't pay to read about more good news.  This is what makes bad news profitable for the media.

I guess I get good news here, and from my family. I like RevJohn's dog good news. My cat often is good news too, prrrr, prrrr, prrrrr, putt putt. Oh, and from movies and songs.

Thousands of years ago a king came to a prophet and asked for good news.  The prophet nodded in the direction of the king's pregnant wife and said, "For unto you a child is born, a son is given."

Like Isaiah I find Good News and hope for the future in the birth of a child - I find it in the youth of our church, in the good news stories I read about young people that I read in the newspapers (this past week a girl who was injured and orphaned in a car accident four years ago is visiting the schools talking about drinking and driving), and I especially see it in my own children and grandchildren.  They are my hope in the world. 

I try to stay on top of a variety of news sources and good news tends to come up here and there.  There's some very encouraging stuff about the advance of gay rights in Latin America for example - that definitely builds up hope.  There's the recent article that Canada has become significantly more secular in the past four decades.  Good news too, if it means we can avoid the nuttiness of religion like it's practised in America. 

Good things are still happening out there. 

I've noticed that absolutely no one has said WonderCafe.... hmm...

I was going to say, just look at your avatar!

And of course, here.

Merry Christmas and a safe and happy 2011 to all.

IT

Russ

I get good news from friends and family, and also from member of my church.

The professional media, it must be remembered, tend to report bad news.   I mean, how exciting would it be to report that several million people got up this morning, went to work, came home and spent a happy evening with their families?   That would not sell newspapers.  It is something to keep in mind when we read the torrent of depressing news in the media.

But even in the professional media, there are some rays of hope to be found, as others on this thread have noted.

Merry Christmas to all!

On the front page of yesterday's paper, along with the stories of flood damage and a fire, there was a picture of a family with four little children and the story of how this weekend they are moving into their in home, their first real home, provided by Habitant for Humanity.  Good News for them this Christmas.  Good News that people care and are doing something about it.