I’ve just finished putting together a digital photo album for 2021. It’s now with Snapfish, and next week a beautifully printed hard-back album should drop through the letter-box. 2020 was my first of these – lockdown year needed its unique memories preserved. 2021 felt like a diluted version: horizons broadened but not much – what photos of interest would I have? And yet so many memories surfaced when I looked back, many of them seemingly insignificant, yet miniature treasures. A butterfly. The Feniton train emerging from mist. A Zoom celebration with distant friends. The Tour of Britain. The Archbishop! Dawn’s sunflowers!
I sometimes wonder how much our childhood ‘memories’ have been shaped by photos. Am I remembering an experience, or have I seen a photo in the past which has created that ‘memory’? Our mind and memory are mysterious worlds. Yet memories make us. And we can help shape our memories by the images we choose. Family photos on the wall do this. My photo album does it.
Stories shape us too. More than one person has said to me recently how they’ve stopped watching the news because it’s so depressing. I resonate with this. Often I’ll read what I need to stay informed but
swiftly move on. An alien arriving on our planet would get a grim perspective of human life from our media. Bad news sells: good news must be 100 times more eventful to make the cut.
Recent news headlined the death of the extraordinary Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I mourned. But I smiled too, reminded of his infectious laugh, and picture him now doing his African dance in heaven. Even sad stories can hold good news.
So to ‘Good News’ – capital G, capital N. The meaning of the word ‘Gospel’. The Good News – God’s all-embracing love for us and his unstoppable determination to bring good out of bad. In the written Gospels it shines out of course. But just as much it shines in the stories our lives tell – every tiny moment love is chosen, or hope pushes up through despair like a Spring bulb.
If we ever need good news, it’s in fact all around us. Let’s allow ourselves to be shaped by the stories and the pictures that are good news.
