Let me tell you about my latest project. I have many projects, by the way, thanks for asking. Some I might one day complete. Anyway, my latest project is restoring a 1948 Zenith radio and phonograph. It belonged to my great-grandparents, who made the big investment just a few years after electricity was provided to Putnam County. It would be many years later before the roads were paved. These are my people, and this is also where I grew up.
I can only imagine what my great-grandparents, grandparents and father thought about when they played an album on the phonograph. It was the fancy kind, with two arms. One to play 33s and the other to play 78s. Too bad it wasn’t the 1980s because that would be a perfect set-up to scratch out a beat with Run D.M.C.
Or maybe they listened to the radio first. Perhaps they tuned in to hear the Atlanta Crackers play the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ponce de Leon Park. None of those exist anymore, including my great-grandparents, who, if they were still living, would be 152. But I digress. Maybe these ancestors heard Hank Williams belt out “Move It on Over,” although I am still not sure what was being moved over. When they first plugged in the Zenith, dialing it to the nearest radio station (WSB) what kind of news did they hear about in 1948? Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination? Truman’s surprise victory? (Did they vote for Truman?) The emerging Cold War? The weather? The possibilities were endless.
Bad news and good news.
So, what’s the news with you?
Living authentically is about speaking truth, which includes bad news and good news. We make known that all is not right in this world, just as all is not right in our own personal lives. We cannot, should not, sugarcoat what is bad.
Alfred Delp, a martyr within a Nazi death camp, wrote: “ … woe to any age in which the voice crying in the wilderness can no longer be heard because the noises of everyday life drown it — or restrictions forbid it — or it is lost in the hurry and turmoil of progress — or simply stifled by authority, misled by fear and cowardice,” as recorded in The Prison Meditations of Father Delp.
I need to add that these very words were penned on scraps of paper and smuggled out of his prison cell by way of laundry. He knew firsthand the bad news that should not be suppressed.
The bad news of this world, however, is not the only news, and neither is it the last news. There is more story to tell, and that story has creation in mind. Where are the shafts of light shining in your world? Where are the acts of kindness taking place? Who are the helpful voices lifting others? What words are you speaking to remind someone they are valued and loved?
Yes, there is darkness; this much is true. What is also true, even truer if that makes sense, is to remember the words of a great prophet, who said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
When we hear, read and watch the news of wars and death and turmoil, we are painfully reminded of humanity’s brokenness. Yet the bad news is not the only news. And it is not the last of the news.
What’s the news with you?
