Good Enough

Most people are good.  Granted, good people don't make for good television, but the fact still remains.

Most people are good.  

So, enough with all of the hating.  Time to give the vocal cords a rest and use our indoor voices. Rabid animals, after all, do not live long--or well--and seldom have playmates on the weekend.  Plus, all that anger makes you look like Monica Seles, mid-swing.

When I think about the thread that runs through and holds me in my life, it always comes back to good people.  At home, "good people" are family, the folks who've seen and smelled and heard me at my worst, yet who are still willing to call me "sister" or "wife" or "mom" or "daughter."  That is no small thing.

At school, "good people" are everywhere--from my funny and smart co-workers to the always-surprising students who wend their way through the library each day.  These are the folks who forgive me when my lesson falls flat, the ones who share their creative ideas, the people who fill me up at lunch with their funny stories and, sometimes, a nice piece of chocolate or two.

In my neighborhood, "good people" are like the hyacinths that poked out their purple heads this week--surprising and beautiful, inspiring and good-natured.  Oh, and they sometimes invite me to drink beer with them on their porches.  Or offer to walk to the park with me, even if they aren't dog people.  Crummy people would never do these things.

At my church, "good people" are the folks who end up in "hobo's row" with me, always quick with a smile or story. Or they are the ones standing in front of everyone, telling us that we are okay, as is. . . which is a nice message to hear in these judgy times.  Today, I lit a candle for some of the good people in my row, a couple whose son died a few years ago in an accident.  I was glad to send up a flame for him.  He was a good person, too.

Then, there are a bunch of "good people" who don't fit into the above categories, people who were once my neighbors, or classmates, or co-workers.  People I detassled corn with, in 1976.  Or played Scrabble with day before yesterday.  People with whom I grew up, got old, lived and loved and lost with. And all of them good.

It's possible I haven't been watching the presidential debates because I'm an uninvolved, unconcerned citizen.  A more likely explanation, though, is that I'm skipping the debates because there is too much vitriol and violence, too little laughter and love to be found in them.

It seems that some people want us to think the worst about this world.  I'm tired of scorched-earth rhetoric.  I refuse to feel hopeless, though, because I know a secret.

I know that most people are good.

Click here to listen to "Shine" by Tracy Bonham