Accentuating the
Positive, or Trying
While sitting
outside a café recently with a cup of tea and the newspaper, I accidentally
dropped one section of the paper. An
elderly gentleman passing by reached down, picked it up, and handed it to
me. Before I could say thank you, he
said, “any good news in that?”
I
actually make a practice of looking for good-news stories when reading the
local and national papers. Nonetheless I
had to tell the gentleman, “not yet.”
Readers of this column may remember my 2014 New Year’s Resolution about
“accentuating the positive,” as the old World War Two song advised. This can be a tall order at times, and right
now is one of those times.
Here
is what has happened in recent days. I received
an email from Beng, a close friend in Manila, telling me about the
destructiveness of typhoon Glenda (Rammasun).
I read about the shooting down of the Malaysian Flight (MH 17) over
Ukraine and the loss of all 298 passengers and crew, including three
Filipinos. Just this past Monday, July
28, I read that terrorists on the island of Sulu murdered twenty-one
villagers. Two of the wounded have now
also died. That is a lot to digest and still
come up with positives, but I decided to see if I could find any.
I
didn’t have to look far to see some definite positives related to Typhoon
Glenda. Beng’s initial email about it
already gave a hint or two of hope. “Not
much rain, thank you,” she said, “but a lot of destroyed homes, and uprooted
trees.” When I read further about Glenda
in the Philippine Inquirer on line,
the report indicated that this was the strongest typhoon of this season in the
Manila area. It caused much property
destruction and left several thousand without their homes. At the same time, the article noted the
following: “Haunted by Super Typhoon Yolanda, which killed thousands, the
residents of towns and villages in Glenda’s path cooperated with authorities
and were saved from death and injury.”
That was good to hear.
While
checking on Glenda, I came across some related good news. In announcing the forthcoming visit of Pope
Francis to the Philippines (January 15-19, 2015), Philippine Cardinal Tagle
clearly had Glenda in the back of his mind.
“Show him (the Pope) who we truly are, especially the resilience of the
Filipinos coming from faith, coming from compassion, coming from bottomless
hope.” Later in his announcement, Tagle
added, “We who experience an average of 20 to 22 typhoons a year, we can show
the world what it means to be pained, to clean up, to stand again and to face
another morning.” Powerful and positive
words.
The above is the first half of the article that appeared in VIATimes Newsmagazine, Aug., 2014. You can access the full article (and the magazine) from this site. It sometimes takes time for the articles to appear, so be patient, again. You may have noticed that some time has passed since the last entry. At least I entered this post before going beyond two months. Enjoy!
