Happy news year

With every new year people tend to feel their life must be better. It's a time to leave old destructive ways behind-we'll quit smoking, exercise more, eat healthier, sleep earlier, promise not to break promises, etc. etc. They are called "new year's resolutions"-usually affecting one's career, health, family life, finances, work habits, possessions, and others. There are many theories as to their beginnings, but whether the tradition started in apostolic times or among the Romans or in the middle ages, the resolutions reflect an innate desire in human beings to improve themselves, the aspiration to attain their higher self.

Are new year's resolutions working for us in this corner of the globe? News headlines are one indicator of how we're faring: if it's consistently bad news-corruption and other crimes, or more dead bodies today than yesterday-then we're going from bad to worse, we do not have sufficient resolve to improve our lot. I believe in the Christ in us, and that there are good things happening around us, but media need the will to give happy news a break in the headlines, to stop whetting man's appetite for decaying things and instead focus on truths that really matter.

A good way to realize what truly matters in life is to reflect on The Infant lying in the manger, naked. That's how all of us came into this world, and that's how all of us are going-naked. Shouldn't that make us grateful to be alive? After all, of what use is everything else if God didn't gift us with life in the first place? So let's pray more happy news in 2017!