If You're Sick of Bad News, Check Your Head... And Your Feet.

Lately, I’ve been getting sick of bad news.More accurately, I’ve been getting sick from bad news.And not figuratively or metaphorically sick, either. I mean that it’s been making me physically ill: showing up in ever-present headaches, a permanently clenched jaw, an enduring knot in the pit of my stomach, and a continual fight-or-flight, full-body Cortisol tsunami.I imagine you understand some of these symptoms of information sickness. That’s largely been the story for most of us for the past 15 months (hell, more like the last ten years): feeling like the bad news is unending. And to some degree, this has been true, but have we also allowed ourselves to believe the mythology of our newsfeeds, internal editors, and worst-case scenario minds?A few days ago, I realized that I was doing something I’ve spent years warning people not to do. I’d fallen into the trap of negatively editorializing the information in front of me; of deciding whether it was bad or good (usually determining that it was the former), and letting that decision shape the story I told myself.Maybe you’ve been guilty of that lately, too: of putting a negative slant on the headlines in your head. It’s easy to do. We are a people who live inside a story, and we are the narrators of that story. The world moves, people do things, events take place, and we decide what all that means, and our emotions and perspective flow from them.This week, I thought of a piece of Christian Scripture from my pastor days. At this point in my life, I’ve recontextualized the Bible, and many passages no longer resonate in the same way they once did, but there are still ideas and phrases that can be incredibly meaningful, simply as concepts.In the New Testament, there is a section of the book of Romans, which is purported to be a letter written by a pastor named Paul to the Jesus followers in house churches in Rome during the first century. The writer is encouraging his audience to remember how important their presence and work were regarding the spreading of the Gospel (which actually means “good news”).He closes this portion of the letter by quoting an Old Testament prophet, writing, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” (10:15)Regardless of our theology or religious worldview, what a wonderful idea this is: a reminder to all of us to think about the news our feet bring to the places we travel every day, the people we cross paths with, and the stuff we post on social media. Take away the trending stories, the alarming updates, the disturbing realities, and we are still sentient human beings who have choices to make about how we spend our time, our resources, our energy. We still have freedom, decisions, and options in front of us.Without even needing to attach it to religion, there is a gospel (good news) according to you. What are you evangelizing? What are the headlines in your head? Is hopelessness trending there?We can easily begin believing the angry, fearful people are the majority; that their hateful hearts are humanity’s default, that everything has gone to hell; that all the news is breaking badly.If you feel that way, friend, stop it. This is a lie, and I think deep down, you know it.The good news-bringers are literally everywhere right now: showing compassion to strangers, doing small, unseen acts of decency, toiling humbly in anonymity, living generously toward people, loving counterintuitively.When we tell ourselves a story of everything is awful, all is lost, and we’re irreparably and permanently screwed, we’re doing a terrible injustice to the tens of millions of people who at any given moment are working to craft a more beautiful planet; people who are doing micro acts of kindness, standing up to bullies, opposing legislation, finding and using their voices, and showing up in the places of pain and injustice and need.There is glorious, heartwarming, defiantly human work being done all around you in this very moment, and if you could get yourself to see it, hope would be involuntary.No, we can’t avoid the bad news. We can’t fast-forward through the difficult things, we can’t sidestep the painful, and we can’t get around the suffering and the sadness in this life. What we can do is respond in such a way that we bring something with us into our daily journeys: we can bring kindness, courage, creativity, and consistency.I don’t want you to deny the sorrow is there, or to minimize the very real dangers, or to pretend many things aren’t in many ways quite awful. But I do want you to allow a dissenting opinion in, because it deserves to be heard. I want you to have a passionate rebuttal to the prophets of doom who forecast an irreversible course into the abyss, especially when their voices sound like your own.The world needs some good news now.Give it some.Be good news-bringers.May we have beautiful feet.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. 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