Breaking News

By Zecharias E. Castro

Has this ever happened to you? Has yourself or someone reported something so weighty, it feels, a bowling ball might as well been dropped on your toes.

Breaking news are light in physical weight. They are made from the air we breathe out and are carried through the air waves. Where these air bubbles or air pockets we call news or breaking news weigh the most is in our souls.

The impact of what we get to hear can be severe. It literally paralyzes our soul from thinking of new useful innovations or show of appreciation and kindness we can do for our neighbor.

Breaking news paralyzed the love we could be showing and activate the fear we should be shunning. People bolt their doors. Buy a more expensive security system. Walk their children to school. Get a huge dog. Buy a gun for protection. Get stressed out and anxious. Tend to get sick more often.

The results of reporting what less than 1% of 1% of the population is doing can devastate the confidence of our souls to do good for the other 99.9% .

There are 300,000,000 people in this country, 3,000,000 is 1%. And 3,000 is 1% of 1%. In a year we get to report news or breaking news on less than 3,000 people doing severe, atrocious crimes. And base upon the cruelty of the actions of these few criminals we make a decision to grow afraid and be watchful of what the other 99.9%(i.e. 299,997.000) might be plotting to do to us.

We are indeed wounded and therefore too blind to see what the Good Samaritan is doing for us. Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan in answer to the question who is my neighbor?. In the road of life our soul has been assaulted with bad news. But the good news are: The Sun is still shining. A large percentage of the population is working. Most people are paying their taxes. The people that work built the houses we live in. They farmed the produce we eat. They built the vehicles we drive or drive the public buses. They built the airlines we love to fly. A paradise is being kept and maintained by our neighbor for us to enjoy and we forget to thank God, He made us to serve one another, to discover in the process, His multi-faceted Love.

I hope your soul as it lays wounded by all it has been hearing lately, will be encouraged by this message to open its eyes and grow appreciative of the many ways we can show the Love of God as we attend to the care of our neighbor.

I wrote the acrostic you can access by clicking the blue button below in honor of my neighbor to present it to Phillip. Phillip is my neighbor. He lives across the street from my family and I. Many times he has shown kindness toward us. And when I hear of all the bad things that happen, I take comfort in the thought God has given me a considerate neighbor like Phillip and many others like him whom I haven’t personally met. But for whom I give thanks to God today and everyday. If you have a good neighbor at work or where you live I encourage you to make a copy of this acrostic and presented to them. Let’s do something good for a change.