Where's the good news?

I've been longing for some good news this week. My laptop crashed on Sunday afternoon and refused to start up again - had to go and buy a new one! The village shop announced that it will close after the papers are sold on Sunday afternoon - I will have to walk further for my paper in the morning, or worse take the car to Colinton!! There is a rat in our garden and the family of, what we thought were mice, now appear to be baby rats! Then, there's HBOS & there would have been a time when that just passed my by since I'm not a shareholder; my money's there, but safe; but now I have a family member whose job is on a shaky nail! And so it goes on...

What have you had to deal with this week? Come back and tell me that some of these concerns are trivial (I will insist that you exclude Sara's job from that; that's far from a trivial thing for anyone!) because you are facing bigger issues: someone has died, someone is in hospital, someone is in need; someone has moved into care; someone has other needs. I will agree with you.

My point is this: how do we deal with bad news? Have you noticed that it is like Lothian Buses at the moment; bad news never comes alone; there always seems to be 3 or 4 of them at a time. There are several reactions:

• we can pretend it hasn't happened and avoid talking about it - that's never a very good strategy; it didn't seem to do the ostrich very much good to sink its head in the sand;
• we can blame God for it all, as if it is all His fault - there is a Gary Larson cartoon from the Far Side books that shows God's finger over the smite button as a man walks under the piano; I find it funny because I don't believe God is like that.
• we can become depressed and angry as if we are being singled out for bad treatment from the 'source of all bad news' whatever that may be, taking it all personally; that is an understandable reaction when there are 3 or 4 bits at a time; we can deal with these things much more easily if there were only 1 of them.

Sometimes, however, the deep theological perspective on life is that 'life stinks'. God is not to blame; we are not the target, but life just stinks. We can become angry about it; not a bad thing at times just to vent your anger and let off steam as long as you don't become violent.

I was at a meeting in the Church Offices this morning and the convenor of the group read from the prologue to John's gospel in the version called The Message. It says there, of Jesus, that "the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood." (John 1:14) OK, it is a bit American, but I think that brings something to this debate. When Jesus came, God moved into my neighbourhood! If that means anything, it means this: God knows the bad news as well as the good; God knows our frustrations and anger and understands our feelings and sympathises with us; God understands when we vent that anger at Him and doesn't condemn us for it; God knows our fears and anxieties and offers us grace to help us.

Good news: there were visitors in Church last Sunday who thought the experience was great; someone offered to change their diary to accommodate a meeting I was trying to organise!!