By Joan Janzen
This has been a year when people are asking if anything good happened in 2020? Someone told me they hope 2020 isn’t the trailer for the upcoming featured year of 2021.
We’re in the heart of the Christmas season, when people are typically more prone to kind gestures and generosity. This year is no exception. The healthcare workers at a senior care facility can prove it, because they were pleasantly surprised when a lady in the community presented each one of them with a handmade quilt in appreciation for all they do, especially in these challenging times.
One of the workers wrote, “It was the next best thing to a hug. We will think of her when we are snuggled up under them!”
Recently I saw an advertisement where frozen homemade unbaked buns were being sold. “I make them, you bake them” was the caption. The baker said she recently retired, and since she couldn’t spend the winter in a warmer climate as she usually does, she had some spare time on her hands. Now she donates the profits from her baking to the local food bank.
I thought it was such an awesome gesture – calories for a cause. Besides there’s nothing better than homemade buns!
To prove that good things are stiff happening, a man named Marian Tupy co-authored a book called “10 Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know”. The book’s authors claim “Things are not as bad as they appear”.
The authors also have a website devoted to spreading a realistic message about the state of the world. Tupy concludes the world is in a much better place than people realize. Their goal is to spread accurate information about what is going on in the world.
For example, he said since the 19th century and the industrial revolution, life expectancy has dramatically increased and poverty has decreased. From 1909 – 2013, we’ve added, cumulatively, 30 IQ points on a global average. This is a massive improvement, resulting from better nutrition and improved living conditions.
Also mentioned in the book is the increase in C02 in the atmosphere, which has resulted in increased vegetation. During the period from 1982 to 2016, added vegetation grew to the equivalent of the combined size of Alaska and Montana.
So, yes, this holiday season you can be encouraged because there are good things happening. Growing up, I would watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” every Christmas holiday. Every Christmas Charlie Brown would complain that he wasn’t feeling happy at Christmas. And every Christmas Linus would recite his good news lines.
“For behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Yes, there’s still good news to be heard this Christmas. From my family to yours, I wish you a blessed, good news kind of Christmas.
You can contact me at joanjanzen@yahoo.com.
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