This is a longer blog than usual, so settle in and get a cup of tea!

 

I mentioned a couple of blogs ago in Awful to Awe-full that I seldom watch the news. No matter what channel I’m on, I perceive a definite trend toward reporting as the news nearly always SAD BAD MAD with very little GLAD, and I prefer to stay in what my daughter (the meteorologist) has coined “Mom’s Happy Cloud”

Now, I know that there are things going on in my world, my country, my state, community, sometimes even among my friends and family (and dare I admit within myself) that are less than desirable, and I still believe wholeheartedly that  God is present in all people and situations, even though sometimes I have a hard time fully understanding how that Presence is working  when my heart aches, my stomach hurts, and the tears flow.

There is no spot where God is not is a phrase I’ve heard and tried to incorporate into my consciousness (from the Latin root conscire: to be aware with). If you truly accept God’s omnipresence, how could it be otherwise?

So, with that intention and awareness, and realizing that difficult and sometimes horrible things do happen, my response is to avoid dwelling on those things, and instead focus on blessing them.
I will admit that is very hard, especially when people are purposefully hurting other people, and this is how I reconcile these seeming contradictions:
First, I believe that the majority of things that happen is good stuff! It is just not reported as news. That is an important consideration to helping me keep perspective.
Second, I believe the two common characteristics that instigate nearly all the SAD BAD MAD events and the people involved are FEAR and IGNORANCE.
Third, the antidotes to those are, respectively, LOVE and LIGHT, other names for God.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world,” is a paraphrasing of Gandhi’s actual quote “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.”

I will Be Love in Every Single Situation  (BLESS) fear- originated events and the people involved.
I will Be Light in Every Single Situation (BLESS) ignorance-induced events and the people involved.
I will be the change I wish to see in the world.  I will meditate prayerfully from my happy cloud on Light and Love, and see what happens!