A Mosquito in the Back Yard

Have you ever wondered what it might feel like to be a mosquito? Probably not, and if you have perhaps you should seek immediate psychiatric help. For the moment though, we’ll pretend its okay to consider becoming a small, annoying pest. The good news about a mosquito is that they belong to a very large family. Cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters are in abundance, although they come and go rather quickly. Your family name is Culcidae, and there are 3,500 different species in your family. We all know people who can’t go anywhere without meeting a friend (and it’s annoying); mosquitoes are like that.

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Good News

In old movies, there was often a part where a man was sitting on the sidewalk leaning against a worn building, wearing torn clothes that supported several days of dirt, would ask a passerby, “Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?”  After the horrifying news this week coming from London about the crime, violence, and complete disregard for human dignity, the starvation in Africa, and the emotional turmoil created by the inept political and financial management of our nation’s resources, today I think the same guy would ask, “Hey buddy, can you spare some good news?”  Even if the person walking past had some good news, he might have chosen to keep it for himself, knowing that more good news would be hard to find; as if sharing good news might dilute its affect.  Or maybe, the guy walking and sitting both needed to look deeper, inside them and outside, to find that elusive good news.

This was one of those weeks where powering on any devise that linked you to world events was a risk.  Seeing the truth of what we humans can do, or accept as justifiable, was difficult; unless one took a long moment to find some of the good that was deeply hidden in all of the bad.  That’s where we enter the conversation.  As Christians we are called to find the good of the moment, and if we are able – to be the good in the moment; it is up to us to paint the silver lining on the dark cloud.  I do not suggest that we bathe ourselves in naivety; turning away from reality so as to not see what is wrong.  No, instead we must tune our eyes and ears (and our hearts) to the frequency of what is good, compassionate, and human; we must find the people, who in the midst of darkness exhibit a flicker of light.

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