Among the many different news programs each day, the evening program is the best one to watch. Because the evening news sums up the important things that have happened on that day, most people watch the evening news before they go to bed. Someone once said that he was afraid of watching the evening news before bed time, because the bad news of the day might disturb his sleep at night. I fully agree with him. The highlights of the evening news are usually full of bad and shocking news such as murder, kidnapping, gun violence, corruption, scandals, fire, robbery and so on.
A few days ago, the top news was that the three police officers were killed and two were injured in a shooting by a crazy man on the streets of Moncton, NB. If police officers are killed by civilians, and then who can protect the civilian people? That was one of the saddest and worst news stories that I have heard. And I wondered what was the man's motivation to do such a thing. On the other hand, it seems that many people are so immune to these kinds of horrible news stories that they might not care about this kind of shocking news any longer, until similar tragedies happen in their own community or to their own family or friends.
The next morning I watched the news again. But the morning news was not much different from the evening news, almost the same bad news plus a couple of new bad things that had happened during the night. We know well that in the world in which we are living there are so many things going on everywhere, all the time. Among them, of course, there are also many good things happening. But these good things seldom become headline news. And most people may not know how good things are. Rather bad things are always focused on as the sources of the daily news. UC Chimes simply points out that there always are so many good things happening in the world.
If people keep on watching on the bad things rather than good things on news programs, and then our society could become more negative, pessimistic and cynical rather than positive, optimistic and hopeful. Every news item, good or bad, tells its own story and offers a special lesson. Indeed we, modern people, need and want to watch more good and joyful news than bad and sad news so that we may make our community better and more liveable. One clear thing is that most cases of bad news, except for natural disasters, are created by people. In other words, people make news. So Jesus said, "let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven" (Matthew5:16). Who knows, your anonymous good work, even it is a small thing, may become the top story of the evening news in heaven!
