Cling to the Good

"Cling to what is good". I read that on the back of a baptist church "love" card. So what's a baptist church "love" card? They are these business-style cards that have Bible quotes and other special messages printed on them instead of your standard name, title, address, phone number, e-mail address and whatnot. Really a very "good" idea if you ask me. An inexpensive, simple way for the church to get God's message out to the general public. While many folks might be reluctant to sit down and read big ol' chunks of the Bible, they might be open to the idea of accepting a small business card and then reading the message printed upon it. I was anyway, and that's how I happened to come across "cling to what is good." So what is "good" exactly? I suppose it is a relative term when you really get right down to it. Good for me might not be good for the guy next door, right? I mean cashews and walnuts might taste yummy, satiate my body, smell heavenly and feel like the perfect sized food in the palm of my hand, but they might kill by best friend who happens to suffer from a nut allergy. Yeah, so "good" in the particular really must be a relative term or idea. But what about in a broader sense? What if I said, "food is good" instead of "walnuts are good"? I'd probably be hard pressed to find someone who would disagree with the categorization that food is good. So in a broad, general sense, what is "good"? Babies, puppies and kittens, and the sun and the moon and the stars, and the rain and the wind and the air that we breathe, and books and movies and songs, and new clothes and hair-cuts and a night on the town, and dancing and playing and love-making, and creativity and thinking and communicating, and a joke and a job and ______. You fill in the blank. Go ahead. I'm sure you can think of a thing or two or ten or twenty that I've failed to mention. But more than that - more than all the things I've listed or the things you may have added - love and family and friends and connectedness and belonging and safety and stability and relationship and compassion and understanding and feeling whole and complete and fulfilled - that's good. Cling to that! Cling to yourself. Cling to others. Cling to the God of your understanding. Cling to that which makes you feel and believe and know that you are good. Because you are! We all are! There is goodness in each and every one of us. While we might not always do good things, say good things, think good thoughts, or feel good feelings, we are still - at our very core - good. I believe God made us "good", because He is incapable of imperfection. Robbers, rapists, murderers, child molesters, yes, even Hitler, did horrific things. They sat God's "good" aside in order to do evil. That does not mean, however, that they - as flesh and bone - were not good. It just means they got lost. Some for an instant, others for much longer. If humanity as a whole could work toward finding the good - in ourselves as well as others - we could cling to it and eradicate that which is not good: poverty, war, homelessness, ignorance, selfishness, hatred, hunger, disease, greed and _____. You fill in the blank. Go ahead. Think on it. Sleep on it. And when you are ready, fill in the blank. Strive then, daily, to cling to the good, which will eliminate the _____. Peace.