Beech Tree News Network

Goodness Exists

By Cheryl Hughes

When we ran our local business, we had an elderly customer, a small woman who drove a pickup.  After her truck was serviced, and she paid, she would always offer me a bookmark.  The bookmark was a hand-crocheted cross.  She never forced it on me.  She would say something like, “If I might give this to you.”  I always said, yes, and I kept them where I could see them throughout the day, so I could remember that goodness exists.

                When Garey and I rescued Brother and Sister cats, I questioned the timing of finding motherless kittens when we did.  We were in the throes of training new owners to take over our business.  Garey and I would rotate coming home during the day to give the kittens their bottles.  When I got home from work, I felt like my brains had been sucked out, and all I wanted to do was stare at the wall in complete silence.  Instead, I came home to crying kittens, ready to be fed their supper.  After they were fed, however, they would curl up on my lap, with their arms around one another then go to sleep purring happily.  I don’t know if I’ve ever known that particular brand of peace.  It was pure.  When I think about that time, I always remember one of my favorite quotes: “Our greatest need is not to be loved.  Our greatest need is to love.”

                In the current social climate, it is a challenge to keep a positive attitude afloat.  One of the ways I keep things in perspective is by looking back.  Not at the good things, but the negative things that have happened, and the attitudes about those negative things at the time.  Nearly eighty-one years ago, my grandmother, on my father’s side, gave birth to her youngest child, Helen, on December 7^th, 1941—the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.  She said she and those around her felt like the world had ended…but it didn’t.

                Forty years ago, country singer, Merle Haggard, believed our country was rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell.  I know that for a fact, because he said so in his number one hit, “Are the Good Times Really Over.” 

                Some have been quick to blame the condition of our country on young people and their disrespect for authority.  “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.  Children are now tyrants… They contradict their parents…and tyrannize their teachers.”  Does that sentiment sound familiar?  You know who said it?  The Greek philosopher, Socrates, who lived between 470 to 399 BC.

                Solomon was right.  There is nothing new under the sun, but I’ve learned if you pay attention to past naysayers, it puts today in perspective.  One of my favorite fb posts this month was posted by a teacher who found goodness right there in her classroom: “Awesome 2^nd day!  The highlight of my day…I was walking around talking to individual students, and a girl said, “Ms. Craig, my Mama told me you love Jesus.  I said, “I sure do” and she smiled so big and said, “I do too.”  Absolutely precious!

(Ms. Craig’s quote used by permission)

One of my friends said to me once, “They told me that couldn’t be done.”  (We were discussing some change she wanted to make to her house.)

“The world is full of naysayers,” I said.

“Yes, and I’ve known every one of them,” she said.

Together, we made the improvement to her house, in spite of what the naysayers said.

I believe the same about goodness.  Together, we can find goodness, in spite of what the naysayers say.  Goodness exists.