How the Cavs Confirm the Goodness of Mankind

I was going to write another post about how damaging fear is.

How, if we feed into it, it can permeate every single aspect of our lives and turn rational caring people into hate-filled fools.  How, if we give it credence, it will invariably control our thoughts and our actions and dance us around on its strings like a puppet master, bending us to its will.

I was going to write about how overcoming fear requires courage that we sometimes just can't muster. But that the freedom and openness and peace that come from defeating our fears is unparalleled.  Life affirming.  Merciful.  And worth the battle scars.

That's what I was going to write about.

Then the Cavs won last night and I'm all amped up about it!

And that turns my mind from pondering the inner recesses of man's propensity toward darkness and destruction to, instead, reflecting on the goodness of man.  

It's easy to fall in line with the naysayers who preach that people are innately bad and the world is a den of insanity and depravity.  (Depending on what day you ask me, I might agree with that assessment.)

But it's then, in the midst of the darkest of times, that the brightest light can shine.  As Fred Roger's mother told him as a child when watching scary things on the news,

"Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

Visit this link to read about some of the helpers in the Orlando tragedy: 10 Stories that reaffirm faith in goodness. Doing this, looking for the good in scary situations, reaffirms a couple things to me.

First, I have no earthly idea why, when I am certain that a loving God exists, such unimaginably heinous things happen.  And if anyone tells you that they know the why, they are either fools or liars.  I have an idea that the why is a mixture of free will and fear, but who am I to say?  Sometimes the wisest thing we can say is that we don't have a freaking clue.

Secondly, I know in my soul that God is as present in those unimaginable heinous situations as he is in the joyous ones.

Look.  We're all his kids - from the most wicked to the most pious among us.  I for one find that comforting since I have a little of both in me.  His heart breaks when his kids are blinded by fear and commit hateful acts.  His heart swells when his kids come together and help each other, love each other.  He is an omnipresent parent who experiences every emotion that we experience with our own kids, including wanting to shake the shit out them sometimes.

This may be a simplistic take on a very complex and divine being, but he made us in his image, so I have to believe that he experiences emotions like we do.  I mean Bible stories run the gamut of very emotional processing and subsequent reactions on his part...that's all I'm saying. :)

So be well, my friends.  Rejoice in the Cavs' glory.  Dance and shout and celebrate!  Albeit on a smaller scale than, say, the end of slavery or the overthrow of the nazis, this is truly an example of the heights man can reach when we work together and help each other and believe in things the naysayers tell us not to.