A regular poster on one of my online groups is enduring a lot of family hardships right now. She’s a gentle and generous soul, and much loved by everyone there. She posted in asking if there’s really any good in the world.
Here’s what I want to do: please reply in the comment box and tell Dotty one good thing about the world. Something that makes you gasp with delight, like a baby’s first smile.
Or something that makes your heart warm, like a person who quilts for charity, or someone who drops off cookies on your desk at work when you’re having a bad day. Let’s get a long list of good things going.
Sin broke the world, but there’s still a lot of good in it. I’ll get us started.
1. Good books
2. crocuses the poke up out of the snow at the start of spring
3. sunsets
4. Cinnabon and its many many sweet gooey creations
5. Kitties curled up on your lap, purring and kneading
6. People who work for homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and hospice.
7. Guardian angels
Keep going!
Earl Grey tea.
Chocolate-covered mint Oreo cookies
sock yarn. 🙂
We can go to the Moon. We can build the Brooklyn Bridge.
The sound of children singing.
The smell of baby shampoo.
The smell of a campfire as you look up at the stars.
Blankets fresh out of the dryer.
Your first kiss with your soulmate.
Boo-boo kisses.
“I love You”s
Hot Chocolate after building a snowman.
Christmas Carols.
Easter Egg Hunts
Those Brave Men and Women protecting our freedom.
Those Brave Men and Women who have died for our freedom.
Northern Lights
The sound of my 1 year old saying, “HI MOMMY!!!”
(I could go on forever…..)
The combined smells of rain and fresh coffee.
Fried chicken.
A brand new box of crayons (the one with the sharpener!)
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof! Even though sin is in it, it’s still good because HE is still good.
Good things I’ve found:
People who will sacrifice their chance to zip through a timed green light so that I can cut in front of them and not wait in the parking lot for another ten minutes.
Toddlers in the grocery store who will smile and wave and say “HI!” to everyone they see.
Homemade cards from my daughter that say, “Htank yuo mom for beeing the best mom ever. I love you the most, mom!”
Getting the house clean before noon.
New baby smell.
Opening the mailbox and finding a letter/card from a friend or relative- and no bills. (hey, it happens sometimes!)
People who have committed to pray for the turning of our nation and world back to God even through the sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Knowing that the reality that we can’t see is bigger, more powerful, and more real than what we can see right in front of us.
Finding a forgotten $5 or $10 or $20 in a pair of pants or a coat I haven’t worn in months.
Freshly mowed lawns.
Turning on the radio and catching your favorite song from the beginning.
Finally mastering (however remedially) a new skill: knitting, sewing, drawing, playing an instrument…
Fountain pens.
Getting a hand-written letter from someone who loves you.
A little thing: puppy breath
A big thing: my daughter who dropped all her plans and rushed off to spend the day with a distraught friend. Taking every season of Angel with her as a distraction (another small thing … Angel and television seasons on DVD).
Julie, that’s awesome about your daughter doing that. There was a similar story on my parenting group where a friend was suicidal, and a mutual friend of the poster went and stayed with her until they were sure she would get through this.
The web of caring of people for one another is one of the best things to live for. When Dotty talked in her post about all the pain she’s going through, most of it was pain she was suffering watching her friends and family struggling with illness and death.
Their illness and death hurts us too, but it hurts us because we as people are important to one another.
Community is one of the best “good things” we have in this world, and in the next, the ultimate community with God in Heaven.
Online friends that you’ve never actually met that care enough about you to cheer someone up when they’re feeling low – and reminding them that there are some good things out there after all. 🙂
Jane Austen novels
Sleeping on line-dried sheets that smell like freshly mown grass…
Further to the above: …under a down blanket on a cool fall night with the windows open just so!
Lilacs
Lemon and orange blossoms
The way the earth smells after a summer storm
Rainbows you see after the summer storm
Giggling baby
Sleeping baby with backside up in the air
Laying snuggled in bed with your daughter, sister, best friend, (or very patient beloved husband) for an evening of girl talk
Meeting kind people on blogs who help lift you up in your down times!
Teenage boys who come give their mothers a hug for no reason.
Hot tea, a pretty apron, and a clean kitchen.
The first smell of cool crisp air and dry leaves in the autumn.
The first whiff of green grass and rain-damp earth in the spring.
Random acts of kindness.
A woman I barely know on the yarn swap list claimed a yarn she knew I was looking for and had it sent to me as a gift. Another woman on the list reported that her mother bought gas, but when she went to pay she was told the person who came in before her had already taken care of the bill. Another woman on another Ravelry group wanted to knit for charity but had no yarn and a total stranger mailed her a box of it. Yet another woman offered up lace yarn on a knitalong list, enough for the entire project.
The great variety of stories we have to read, from Spiderman to Wuthering Heights.
Jane’s stories. 🙂
Cats. Especially when they decide they must be involved in whatever it is you’re doing. The bring you back to the moment.
Angora rabbits. There is something wonderful about a creature that sweet and cute and friendly producing abundant amounts of a fiber that is so amazingly warm and soft. If I had to clothe a family with nothing but my knitting needles and spinning wheel, the first thing I’d do is get a litter of angora rabbits. Unlike sheep, you can raise them indoors.
That moment right after you’ve finished knitting lace and it looks all horrible and scrunched up, then you put it in water and zing, all the eyelets open up and it’s spectacular. Life can be like that, so much beauty pretending to be ugliness until one simple thing unlocks the truth.
Libraries.
A friend who stands at your side no matter what.
Art wrought in love.
Clothes fresh on the line.
Soft Sheets.
Peonies
Lilacs
The pyramids and obelisks of Egypt. It’s amazing how any structure could stand that long.
Sedona Arizona. The ground looks like a watercolor painting.
The smell of a really old violin.
And of course, the sound of that violin being played by a master. 🙂
Chocolate ice cream.
Long summer days.
Freedom.
Justice.
Good hair days.
Music.
Singing.
bluegrass music by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that makes me smile as soon as I hear it
deer cutting across my front yard on the way for a drink in the pond
the smell and taste of morning coffee
chex mix
chocolate covered cherries
midol
penguins
colors – especially purple
anime and manga
s’mores!
getting a call from someone you haven’t talked to in awhile
laughing for no apparent reason
polar bears!
Looking at the person you’re with, and smiling just because you’re happy to be with them
Deer in the neighborhood – didn’t know the woods nearby were that big.
Your mother, lost to the world from Alzheimer’s suddenly brightening up and saying, “Hi, Joe,” to the husband you weren’t sure she knew you married.
Jane’s books (totally agree)
Double rainbows
Strangers holding the door for you
Strangers praying for you
Knowing that God hears your prayers even when the answer takes a bit
Getting the house you really wanted
Scary mysteries
Hot cups of tea
Waking in the middle of the night and kissing the back of my husband’s neck
Fernwood Botanic Gardens
LOLCats
Blog friends
Chocolate
My ability to occasionally surprise myself by being good, nice or unselfish
Ice Cream
The exercise room at my school
The ability to go on
The soft, wrinkly skin of a newborn baby
Giggling kids
Chocolate kahlua cake
The smell of chrism on a newly baptized baby
Listening to someone with an exceptional singing voice
M&Ms
Getting a new scrapbooking magazine in the mail
My son wanting to hold my hand
Holding my husband’s hand during Mass
Clear, blue skies
The Sistine Chapel.
A cold hose on a hot day.
A caramel frappachino.
A seedling in a sidewalk crack.
A redwood tree.
The Big Dipper.
A favorite bottle of wine.
A belly-shaking joke.
The film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Cuddling under a blanket on a rainy day.
Hugs from your mama.
Stupid jokes that make you laugh and laugh and laugh 🙂
Baby snuggling into you and going to sleep.. awww
Shades of green… green trees, green valleys, green leaves…
The quietness in a chapel.
Cute mama blogs.
Singing along to beautifil music- Celtic Woman.
Woohoo! So many good things!
Dotty, I hope you’re feeling a little better now. As you’ve said, internet friends whom you’ve never met want the very best for you. And that’s worth quite a bit in this world. 🙂
I see beauty in the world in my garden. I plant those little tiny plants, and then they blossom into wonderful magnificent colored displays for all te world to see-in short they are beautiful. And my garden teaches me that there is only so much I can control (and I am a control freak). I can plant, I can give the seedling just the right mix of soil, I can water…in short, I can nurture the plant. But I cannot control it. It will grow as it does and there is nothing I can do about it after I have done what I know needs to be done. And my garden has taught me patience. They say that the mistake of new gardeners is that they fill the garden with plant upon plant so that they first year there is a burst of color. But in a few years, it is evident that plants need space and they have none in that over-planted garden. So, I have learned patience. Space the plants as they need to be spaced and understand that time will fill in the rest.
Waking up to the singing birds outside my bedroom window.
Falling asleep to the sound of my puppies lying beside me.
Smelling a summer rain and instantly remembering my time at camp when I was young.
Picking up the phone and finding my best friend on the other end of the line.
Reading in Ephesians how much God loves me.
Stories to tell over and over. Stories to tell just once.
A quiet glade for an afternoon nap.
A child reading to you.
Weeding the garden and finding flowers.
Jesus
(He is always my first good thing to remember when I get overwhelmed by the bad)
Sunsets
(A series of sunsets were a part of my conversion. Is there any beauty more gratuitous?)
Fresh baked bread
Beer
(Credited to Winston Churchill- “Beer is proof that God is good and that he wants us to be happy” I often substitute for beer anything that seems to me to be particularly sweet at a given moment)
Mediteranean Food
Strangers who lay their lives down for other strangers like the 1st responders to the WTC on 9/11 and Father Mychal Judge.
& while I am at it, the guy who gave away his shoe store’s inventory to all the survivors who had lost their shoes as they passed by. He didn’t even give it a second thought.
Our human ability to do good & to desire it enough to do whatever it takes to bring light out of even the worst darkness.
(If there was no ultimate Good behind the universe, this notion of fighting against the tide wouldn’t be possible. We wouldn’t even be able to see the point in resisting evil. Good and evil would just be something we would accept like the animals do. Good would not be worth so much more than the status quo that it is worth any cost, even the death of God Himself on the Cross. We just wouldn’t be able to conceive of it unless it was communicated to us somehow. Humans fight the dark because our Lord does.)
The intimate beauty of a flower.
The awesome beauty we see in the depths of the universe.
The first view of a new planet or moon: a unique revelation of the complexity and originality of creation.
The look on the face of a sick child, gazing at a parent, guardian or medical person with hope and love.
The incredible joy of being part of a loving family.
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