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The Shire, Middle Earth, nr Oxford, UK

Thursday, 9;00 am

561 words | 2 1/2 minutes read | Life-Changing Value

Hello Reader,

As a culture, we have forgot to count our blessings. Doing this seems odd to most, and scandalous to some. Our world seems to scream that we pay attention to the dark, the appalling, the alarming. It seems almost a virtue to stay in a state of fearful outrage.

We all know it’s effective clickbait. Yet, it is still powerful enough to leave our hearts skewed after the first rush of attention. It leaves our outlook damaged. Where is the good news? We are left believing the lie that there is hardly any.

Like a fragile flower, good news seems nice but weak. I know a radio journalist who recently worked for Premier Radio. They asked for good news stories to offset the negativity. Few were forthcoming.

In this broken society, we are pushed to protest, to rail at the man. Not to do so, it is argued, is immoral. So some have taken to the streets, to sit in front of traffic, with a righteous, but confused protest… as if that will make any difference. The outcome is merely more control, more frustration, more anger with our fellow man.

Seeing the positive is more uncommon than ever. But it can still be cultivated. We can even come to value it.

Then we discover a world that is good. We do this by growing a habit that you will have heard before. Perhaps, you have heard of it, and yet dismissed it as insignificant. It is the gratitude list.

Like Viktor Frankl in the Nazi death camps, we can choose hope. We realise what hope does to us, in us. We stand out. We even become hope to others. All the while, the Nazi guards of our culture scream at us that we must be afraid.

Hope rises about the rancour. Awe of the natural and spiritual world takes over from anxious algorithms.

Here’s what I do. I find three things every day for which I give thanks in my journal. I do it at the beginning of the day. It resets my perspective. I probe for the positive.

Another delusion is this: we think what is happening to our society is unique. It is not. The rise of a fear culture reveals itself regularly down through history. It was not merely in the 1930’s and 40’s in the Third Reich. Consider the time of Emperor Nero. Paul had been shipped and imprisoned in Rome for sedition: Nero was not god.

In his dark cell, soon to die, Paul wrote this to the first faith community he established in Europe:

I have done this now for at least ten years. It has changed me. It has changed the way I see the world. I engage with it differently.

No fear. More hope. It is emotionally healthy. It has been the beginning for me of many positive outcomes.

Dear heart, please try this. Press into it.

Yours ever,