Coastline Pilot

18 May 2007

 

Chasing the Muse

Catharine Cooper

 

"Good News"

Afternoon easy in Laguna Beach.  From the deck, our city spreads out like a blanket of spring flowers.  Brightly colored homes punctuate the chaparral colored landscape, reminding me that we live in a desert and that water is precious.

 

Two young men launch remote control gliders from the high school baseball field.  The plane’s tiny engines propel them into the sky above my home.  As they reach a particular altitude, the engines are cut and their glide begins. The winged craft delicately twist and turn on updrafts and currents that my eyes are unable to detect.

 

So much of life is like that – undetectable. 

 

I ponder their aerie, the views that these tiny craft share.  At certain heights, perspectives shift.  The world seems like a different place. 

 

I am reminded of the lyrics of a Bette Midler song, “From a Distance”

 

“From a distance we all have enough,

and no one is in need.

And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,

no hungry mouths to feed….

 

From a distance there is harmony,

and it echoes through the land.

And it’s the hope of hopes, it’s the love of loves,

it’s the heart of every man.

 

From a distance … yes.

 

What do the two tiny planes ‘see’ on this sunny spring afternoon? 

 

Beach bathers.  Lawn trimmers.  Children at play in their backyards.   Gardeners tending their flowers and shrubbery.  Folks with lemonade and a good book to read.  Tennis players lobbing volleys.  Swimmers in the high school pool.

 

From a distance, we see what our memories feed our minds.  We conjure a world of our own making, because we cannot actually see the details.  Not the snarl of Sunday traffic, nor the arguments of a child wanting ice cream at a downtown shop.

 

I believe we are hard-wired to see goodness.  As in the  Midler lyrics .. ‘it’s the heart of every man.’

 

Emma and I were waiting in Starbucks last week for our morning soy chai tea.  In our common chatter-conversations, we discussed a news story that had taken over the airwaves. 

 

A family of ducks had been stranded in the middle of the 405 freeway, with baby ducklings herded by their parents amongst oncoming traffic.  The newscasters had described their plight and the daring rescue attempt to extricate them from their perilous location. 

 

Emma and I both simultaneously shared the thought,  ‘Wow!  Good news!”

 

What might it be like if the nightly news were good news.  Not wars, or shootings, or fraud, or accidents.  What if broadcast news was about kids winning awards, or folks doing kind deeds.  We’re hungry for it, but would we listen?

 

We quickly ramped up an idea of a website devoted solely to this enterprise.  Maybe we could generate enough interest to create a following.  To my grand surprise, several websites are already dedicated to that very mission.   Some are religious in orientation, but others simply focus on what is right with the world.

 

Good News Network (www.goodnewsnetwork.org/) reports the latest news, with articles on family life, recreation, business and more.    Recent headlines include: “Skyscraper to Produce It’s Own Energy”, “Commuting to Inner Peace”, “Koala Conservation Goes Global”, and “Work Begins on Brad Pitt’s Green Project in 9th Ward”.

 

Good News Daily (www.goodnewsdaily.com/) actually asks for submissions and holds a ‘story of the month’ contest.  Recent headlines include: “Soldiers help heal 3-year old burn victim”, “U.S., Iraqi aviators share a day of partnership”, “New leopard species found in Borneo”, and “Supergirl line to benefit Girls club”.

 

I recognize that I don’t experience an adrenal rush when reading about a new commuter bike lane in the Netherlands.  Years of immersion in the evening news have created a modicum of addiction to what is reported, and that - a race to cover the most horrific stories with the goriest of details. This of course, drives network ratings, ie, advertising dollars and commerce hard at work.

 

But my intellect is engaged by reports of positive actions.  My mind is stimulated to engage in like-minded thinking.  What might the world be like if everyone listened to good news instead of bad?  How might we be changed as a culture, a society?

 

The two young men on the baseball field gather their downed gliders as the sun sets in a pile of salmon and rose colored clouds.  They pack up their planes, content with a day’s adventuring.  In my mind again, the thought, “What did those planes witness?”

 

From a distance … we are all fragments of life spinning together on our blue planet.  From a distance, we are all the same … breathing, laughing, and sleeping. 

 

May all our futures be filled with good news …