I feel like I have done more crying over what’s happening in the world in the past couple of weeks than I have in some time. We don’t have television; we don’t watch the news. I miss a lot and in many ways, it’s intentional. But this past week I found myself reading more than usual: articles shared by friends, news headlines online. The stories coming out of the Gosnell trial are devastating, and now Boston. Our children don’t know, so my prayers are whispered. I don’t have the right words, just my prayers and a desire to shine the light that I carry even on these dark days.
We don’t watch the news either, or TV. Unfortunately my work is online based, so I have to ‘keep up’ with what’s going on. We are pretty sheltered though, especially my kids – I’m busy raising the kind of kids who will be the helpers in these kinds of horrible situations. So hard being surrounded by all this horrible stuff, but yes, there is still so much beauty all around us!
Doesn’t it seem like things are just getting worse? It’s easy to forget that there is still a lot of beauty in the world. Our children are proof of that. Your photos are beautiful.
Ginny, I feel the same. I love your photos though! They speak life and love, and it’s encouraging to know that despite the darkness in this world, there is a loving God who still wants us to live and love to the fullest!
Blessings!
Deborah
Oh Ginny- I hadn’t heard about Gosnell so I had to google that. I am sick and so saddened. there are no words…
We have no television, and try to minimize the mainstream media’s hold on our daily lives, but it is so important to stay informed for the sake of being aware of people like “Doctor” Gosnell. I can’t believe how many people are unaware of this case. It is so tragic, and even more heartwrenching now that I’ve had a child. How can we fight for what is right if we don’t even know what’s going on?? Still, there’s only so much bad news one can take…
As a matter of fact, your photos in this post prove my point.
I heard a brilliant thought on the radio yesterday: the news is news because it is rare and unusual. We hear about many horrible acts of violence, but of course the vast majority of life and activity on the earth every second is growing, living, loving and peaceful. I try to keep that in mind.
I also avoid the news. I work at my local small town Police Department and see and hear enough while at work. My mind and heart no longer had room for any more ugliness.
Open records laws require us to give reports to the media. They look for any tidbit that will make “good news”. It seems that they are looking for the worst story and hoping to spread it to anyone and everyone on the news. The demand for stories about other’s misery seems to never end.
My heart always goes out to the victims.
Thanks for this. Your beautiful photos and words are such a gentle, calming reminder that we are not alone in what we seek for our family, and that choosing this life is a way -a small way, but maybe the only way – for the Kingdom of God to be “among us.”. Despite all the heartbreak of recent days, I am also strengthened by the comments here, to know so many others are living their hopes and dreams and prayers for their children by the choices they make and the beauty they seek in the small things. And so my thanks to all.
Same visual media void here, but we do subscribe to World magazine to stay informed. There’s something gut-wrenching about actually seeing those images and then playing them over and over again in our minds. So I was horrified to see wall-to-wall TVs tuned to breaking news when my young son and I stopped off at a new eatery yesterday afternoon. You’d better believe I hustled us out of there in a hurry!
Thank God we can make our homes little islands of Truth, Beauty and Goodness in this fallen world. We ARE changing the culture — one child at a time.
Oh this is a lovely truth. Thank you for sharing and reminding.
Thank you, Ginny, for shining that light. It means so much. It really helps. There is still so much beauty and love in the world. You are living proof of that! xoxo
i think it’s a good world we live in, with some people who have had very sad and misguided lives. as a montessori guide, i do my best every day in some small measure to fill the world with loving humans (it starts in EARLY childhood, birth to 6). remember the helpers. it IS a good, kind world overall.
I intentionally avoid the news as well. The only reason I heard about the Boston terrorist attack was because a friend of mine on fb put out the call for prayer immediately! I haven’t even heard about this trial you speak of *sigh*
God’s Spirit is strong and His Mercy through Jesus Christ will prevail in this dark world – if only we remember to shine His light!
It is comforting to hear of other people who live in a media-void, since I grew up in a household with the news on every night and family members who still can’t understand not wanting to know every gruesome detail about the sadness in the world. I can’t remember the last time I turned on the news and I have not yet clicked a link about the Gosnell trial, but my husband follows current events more than I do (and handles them better) and if I feel I need to know, he always fills me in as needed, which is much more helpful since it is filtered through his Biblical perspective. God has called our family to live in a very broken community full of intense suffering and intense spiritual and physical poverty, so the kind of “news” I receive on a regular basis about the pain and brokenness immediately around me is almost enough to drown out the beauties of God’s specific and common grace all around me- I don’t need to look further than our little community to hear about pain and suffering beyond belief. Your blog is one of the few links I click on almost daily and I find it consistently encouraging because of your focus on beauty, peaceful and quiet living, simplicity, love, and prayer and is a haven to me whether you are posting pictures of your home, discussing your family, your bees, your own growth and struggles. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for your sweet and calming pictures and for your willingness to share your pain in the darkness that this world can be. Thank goodness that “the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it!”
SHINING YOUR LIGHT, sister is all you can do. And it is HUGE. It is what heals and the world may seem shaky and unnerved but it is not. It is full of people shining their light. And that will always, always, always out way what feels like darkness.
Peace~
Dawn
This has weighed on my heart today as well. I wrote a bit about it on my blog, too: http://wegotourhandsfull.blogspot.com/2013/04/it-happens-everywhere.html
Wishing peace to everyone!
I am crying and heartbroken as well and in the midst of it dealing with the 5th anniv of my mother’s death. Suffering brings us to the cross. Joseph in prison bore it with God’s grace and mercy. I only wish I could do so in a small way.
I didn’t find out the news until a coworker told me. It’s so tragic and hard to find meaning when things like this happen.
Thank you for the beautiful pictures. I love those ones of the three littles all in bed together 🙂
I can’t even watch a violent movie and like so many others, we have almost no media in our house except the internet (but it is dial-up so we don’t do facebook or check news sites, etc…) – but we heard this when out at the general store yesterday – oh… I think we have no choice but to respond in love and raise our children with unconditional love and pray.
I’m another who avoids papers except the Catholic Herald, won’t listen to radio stations that have news and doesn’t have tv. I find my anxiety levels so much lower than they were in the days when I was obsessed with news/current affairs. My DH is a bit of a news junkie and will tell me “xyz is a big story but it will be triggery for you” and sometimes I will follow it online, as with the “doctor” you mention, Ginny. All we can do I guess is “be the love we wish to see” in the world, in our own little realms and with God’s grace the ripples will spread.
i ran the half marathon last october and my husband friends and 3 kids were stood in the crowd cheering, the thought of Boston happening then….i cant even breathe!
I don’t watch news either (FB shows me enough! 🙁 ) and my heart is breaking too; we are praying too; I have some beautiful beeswax candles at home from a monastery that we light in prayer.
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As always, thank you for these beautiful pictures.
I too am heartbroken and was very worried yesterday when I realized my sister in law and her four children had gone to the marathon to cheer on the runners. Her husband couldn’t get a hold of her for a while. Although he had talked to her just before the explosions and was pretty sure that she wasn’t where the explosions were, we were waiting fearfully until we heard she was all right. But our happiness was overshadowed knowing that there were other families who didn’t receive good news. It is so sad, but my sister in law reminded us that there was much more good going on at the marathon than there was evil. She talked about all the support and love and happiness that she saw where she was at mile 18. It was a reminder to me that most people in this world are good.
As with you and so many of the lovely women who have already commented, I do not watch the news. I will sometimes follow a click here or there on the computer…and then regret it. My mind is so very active and visual and my peace of soul so easily stolen. I would rather be overwhelmed by God in the Scriptures and the sunrise, the songs of the birds and the giggle of the babies than by the evil in the world. And following a click here and a click there, well, it overwhelms me.
I read a bit about the abortion trial and now his face is stuck in my mind. I watched a news report of the bomb in Boston and I tried to flee mentally as I watched people physically run for their lives.
This is one of the main reasons I enjoy your place so much. I see the beauty of your everyday; not a fake saccharine beauty, but an ordinary beauty and I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God, not the trials of the world.
So many times I wonder if I should just unplug completely. Only write letters to friends and family and shut down the internet. We don’t have t.v. either, and my husband reminds me not to click on every link out there. These stories are so heartbreaking and defeating at times. Standing at the edge of despair is never a pretty place to be. Truth an Goodness hves already won. I have to remind myself of this every day…
I shy away from media too…choosing not to watch television and carefully surfing the web. It’s just too much at times. So difficult, so devastating.
Joining you in prayer…
We also “lost” the television for exactly the same reasons. I struggled to explain our reasoning to other people until a friend told us last week that she gave her tv away because “I couldn’t bear how miserable it made me”. That summed it up. Which doesn’t mean to say we don’t pay attention to world issues, we just select what we feel we can process (on the radio, online or in the newspaper), choose the issues we feel we need to understand better, and hope against hope that our children are protected from the horrors for as long as we can manage.
I hope that the London marathon next weekend is safe. So many people do marathons to raise valuable money for fantastic causes, it’s really sad to think people may be put off doing good things because of this awful, awful day in Boston. It’s really heartbreaking.
Thankful for your web cite – yesterday was unsettling enough than last night we had 5 earthquakes between midnight and 5 am in OKLAHOMA – your cite was a calm in the storm at 3 am. Life is good, God is better.
We don’t watch tv either for the exact same reason. I occasionally read news online, and I feel the same way. When you are out of the daily stream of information, it seems particularly heavy when you let that darkness in. 🙁
Oh, and I just want to say that I absolutely love those last two photos, Ginny!
We live in a media-void, too, outside of the internet. And I am praying along with you. I just don’t know how those without belief in an afterlife can function in this world we live in. I have to keep reminding myself that we are pilgrims here, and that life is a via dolorosa, and that if we are faithful, we will find the joy we keep seeking here in the next world. Without that vision, the world becomes an awfully nasty place…
Whispering with you… blessings… peace… hope… such difficult days.
I didn’t know about the Gosnell case but just looked it up and am now sitting here is disbelief with tears in my eyes. How could anyone be so evil- so cruel? Why? Oh Lord, deliver us!!!
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I do the same thing Ginny- avoid tv and papers on purpose, but sometimes some of the saddests things leak through. I think it’s because those are the situations that need our prayers, and so I join you today in prayer 🙂
It is such a devastatingly sad and evil world that we live in. One can only hope and pray that the Lord will see fit to return soon so that we can all live in joy and peace with Him forever in eternity!