The Good News

Please, I beg of you: Share the good news. Not “The Good News” they talk about in churches and cathedrals. Not “The Good News” of glossy magazine covers, detailing which celebrity lost the most baby weight this week. Not “The Good News” of the six o’clock time slot, announcing which blockbuster banked at the box office.

The better news.

Like how you’ve finally forgiven him for letting you down all those years ago. You realize now that he was scared then and battling demons that had nothing to do with you. Share how this forgiveness has bred more love between the two of you. How it has freed your heart and mind in ways that make you feel afloat in a cloudless new sky.

Share how you’ve finally stopped blaming your mother for having not done everything perfectly. For having not masked her weakness in those rare moments you were subjected to her humanity. Oh, how that scared you. And, oh, how your heart wells in compassion for her now.

Share how you managed to arrive at that delicious new plane of acceptance for the dimples in your thighs, the soft flesh of your belly and the tiny lines that have emerged from the delicate skin around your mouth. These were born out of time—hours spent nourishing the body, offering the world laughter, speaking, living.

Share the good deed you did today. Or yesterday. Please entertain the possibility that there was at least one. You participated in history, whether or not you have assigned significance to any of the precise words you selected or any of the ideas you, alone, birthed. Perhaps you smiled at someone. Perhaps you thanked someone. Perhaps you loved someone.

Share the good deeds you will do tomorrow. Even if living is all you do, try, I beg of you, to see it as good. Living is a remarkable gift, and if it is willed by the universe that you should have another day of it, know that all the things you do or choose not to do, are deeds of utter sacredness. See the sanctity in filling your lungs with breath, in savoring the sun for as long as it burns bright above you, in existing at this singular moment that is your life and yours alone.