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Goodness of God

             I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:13-14)

Back in the 1800s, people go listen to a debate or a speech, or attend a long play and return home to spend hours talking about it. Since the advent of social media, our attention span has reportedly dwindled to under 5 seconds. There are times I can attest to this in my own life. Another reality with the media is that to hold our attention and earn ratings (which means money), reporters are bringing the biggest, baddest, most spectacular, and most frightening news they can. “No news is good news” has become “good news is no news.”

These are problems we face when we seek something positive – especially something from God. Unless the goodness of the Lord is splashy, sexy, or spectacular, our minds don’t consider it worth noticing.

Last night, I cut back two big clumps of garlic chives and spread them out to dry. This morning, I did the same with several clumps of chives. I clipped some lilac buds, and pulled a couple of dandelions. Out of my window, birds are feasting at the Keil Diner, and my serviceberry bushes are in full bloom, and one of my salvias is getting ready to bloom. It’s warm enough that I was able to put my seedlings outdoors for over an hour. I have a home, a garden, a dog, transportation, a job, a family, a church, friends. I am working on my fourth book.

Yes, some may say that all of those are “natural” things that can happen to anyone. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but that’s the point. None of it is splashy, sexy, or spectacular (well, the serviceberries in bloom are at least close) but that’s the point. The goodness of the Lord doesn’t have to be.

At some point, Walt Disney’s Tinkerbell came to mind. At least once-upon-a-time, she would fly onto the TV screen, tap her wand, and pixie dust would poof forth onto her target. It looked to me as if some of it, like a magical glitter, poofed forth onto others. In Tinkerbell’s case, the poof brought the TV screen to life. It seems to me that we think of God’s blessing or God’s goodness as being “surgically” imparted. But what if it is more like the pixie poof, mostly on the intended target, but scattering over others? At least sometimes.

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