Good news?! Who needs some good news?! I sure as hell do.

So many of us have been hearing “bad news” with words like “exposed” and “asymptomatic” re-emergng. More nose jabs to the brain, more counting days and isolating and CDC “recommendations” 🔐. More frustration and anger at being told precisely how to carry on despite it all sounding more like wishy washy theories than concrete facts. But this art was made and titled “Good News” weeks ago, before I could have known that we would need to hear some good news.

The “good news” is that we don’t need the fear that this virus keeps coming back to sell us; it’s not meant for us. The “good news” is that we weren’t meant to hold fear, so you can go ahead and hand that shit over. The “good news” is that, after two years of this, we are stronger than we were two years ago, and the “good news” is we are getting more resilient by the day. The “good news” is that color and light are still present and as patient and persistent as ever; ready and waiting to greet us. I can see it, in the clearing ahead. I feel like I could reach out and touch it, yet here I am reaching into a mostly empty bag for more patience in order to understand why I cannot get back out there, to that place of color and light. I am tempted by anger. I have so much to do out in that clearing. I have art inside of me that has been waiting for months to be made, waiting for pain to heal and for my children to go about their school days. Unfortunately, the bearer of bad news has other “recommendations” and that makes me angry as hell. That’s a problem because anger is just what fear wants. It all brews together nicely. If I get mad, fear still gets its way….nope. ain’t gonna have that.

I lean into the hunch that too many of these “recommendations” are the byproduct of fear. So, what are we left to do about it? How does one keep these fears and angers from getting too close and taking over? We have to oppose it. The opposite of fear is trust, loving trust. I have a sour feeling of frustration swirling, but instead of letting it churn into something ugly, I am fighting it back with Love: these words and this painting, to remind us of the good news:

that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind;

So, I will continue to lean into trust not fear. I will continue to remind you that fear is not intended to be a part of our experience on Earth, faith is, trust is. Love is. And, my sweet friends, that is where COLOR and LIGHT await for us; beyond this shadowy, dark spirit of fear.

2 Timothy 1:7

John 14:27