Optimistic News: Family Saved from Drowning

Boy, this was an interesting story from the excellent site “Good News Network“.

What we have is a video of a bunch of men trying to save a father, and his toddler and infant children from drowning as their SUV was trapped in rushing water…upside down.

The man who recorded the events ended up performing CPR on the children.

I get really excited about stories like this for one particular reason (among other reasons): Video. I find it sad we are able to capture video for tragedy seemingly easy. But, what about heroics? I’m glad Tom decided to pull out the camera. Hit the link and watch the video.

No, seriously, watch the video. A very powerful video indeed. You don’t need to know how long it is. But, if you HAVE to know, I would guess it was a few minutes long. I mean, the video player doesn’t have a timer on it so…but whatever. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. The whole thing was pretty awesome. You saw this happened. You heard the fear and eventual sighs of relief.

As I said before, I’m happy this was recorded. So happy.

Tuesday Testimony: The True Lord Saves

This testimony is from CARM:

My name is Barry and I live in Sydney Australia. D.O.B. 23/10/72

My first memories of Jesus are very fond. Up to the age of five I remember feeling this overpowering love for the Lord. As a young child I remember my favourite songs were hymns and Christmas carols. I would spend hours looking through my Uncles illustrated bibles. I would draw the crucifixion scene over. Even at the age of five or six I remember thinking that I would very much like to go to heaven.

My family were strong Catholics. That meant that we went to mass, had statues and medals in our house and that was it. The only time my father ever struck me was when I used the Lords name in vain.

I remember that my dad had accrued many books on evolution during his science degree. He spent many hours teaching me about evolution. His favourite movie was 2001 a space oddyssey. He declared that one day we would evolve again into a higher level of existence just like the end of the movie. He taught me that the old testament was a hoax because science disproved it. He took me to see movies like “chariots of the Gods” at the age of six to show me that we had to be the remnant of some older alien civilisation. Dad also became involved in the occult – Tarot cards, clairvoyance, astral projecting and witchcraft.

So my childhood view of the world changed from awe at Christ to an eclectic evolution/science fiction/occult view of the meaning of life. But the bottom line was this mix gave life no meaning.

I spent my primary school years convincing kids at my Catholic school that the bible was false.  I spent my high school years laughing at the stupidity and morality of Christians.  I spent the ages of 22 – 27 ripping apart my Christian sister in law and other family members claims that Christ was the only way. I believed that all religions were valid and all paths led to God. I used the leverage of my worldly education to try to shoot holes in their beliefs.

In 1999 two days before my second child was born, our Doctor called me. I was working three hours from home. He informed me that the vital signs were dropping off and that it was likely that the child could die.

The first thing I did was hit the floor on my knees. I cried out “Lord, if you are real, please save my daughter. I promise I will walk with you all my life and raise my children in a Christian home”. A cry from the heart of a sinner who never acknowledged his Father. I felt this overwhelming sense that the true and living God was with me, even though I spent my life rejecting him.

I got home as quickly as possible. At the induced delivery I expected the worst – a stillborn or brain damaged child. Four hours into labour a perfect baby girl was born. I was overjoyed. The doctor dragged me into the corner.

“Have a look at this” he held a kidney dish before me.  In it were the black remnants of some rotten organ.

“What is it?” I enquired.

“This is your wife’s placenta. It is a miracle that this child lived.”

Two months later I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour at an alter call at our church. My wife also did the same that day. That year my brother, brother-in-law and mother-in-law were also saved. Right before his death my father-in-law was saved. I have seen more miracles in one year than I would have believed possible. In a strange twist I am now teaching scripture to children one day a month at primary school. Twenty years before I was leading children from the Lord.

My dad died when I was fifteen. Only God knows what was in his heart when he died.  Jesus has changed my life so much. Before I was saved I already had a senior position with a good salary and all the things the world holds dear. But this never made me happy. Now I gladly give it to the Lord – everything I have is his. I feel strangely not at home in the world yet happy to serve the Lord in it until He calls me home.

If somebody is reading this who considers themselves an intellectual as I did wants to laugh the testimony off I would encourage them to try this. Pray everyday for three months that God will reveal himself in your life. Lay down your pride in your knowledge and beliefs and ask that if Jesus is Lord, could He touch your life. I was a person full of pride because of my achievements in life – yet at the peak of this I felt at my most hollow. It was only when I realized that it was because of God that my life was blessed that I gave Him the glory. I pray that whoever reads this testimony will give God the glory for the blessings in their life.

God Bless you all – Barry.

Why is this blog named Dante’s Optimism?

Whenever I name something, it’s because the name or word means something. For example, a nickname for one of my sisters is of a breed of dog. I saw the personality and traits of this dog and my sister came to mind. Add in the fact that she loves animals, and it was a perfect fit.

I mean…there is a risk here. Clearly, we know a female dog is a bitch, but, ya know…I would never call her that…

But anyway, when I was looking for a new name for this blog, I wanted something that reflected what this blog was about. So, I got my thesaurus out and went hunting. “Positive” “Good” “Hope” and other words were considered. And then, I ran into “Optimism”.

Being optimistic is tough in today’s world. But, I think every generation says that, honestly. But, when we think of that word, what does it mean? Optimism:

  1. 1 : A doctrine that this world is the best possible world

  2. 2 : An inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome

Alright. So, when I say “Dante’s Optimism”, that’s what I’m talking about. I didn’t pick this name because it sounded fancy or sophisticated. I didn’t pick this because other people were using this word and I wanted to get on the bandwagon. No, I knew what I wanted for this blog, and optimism fit the bill perfectly.

It’s my optimism, though. This is how I feel. So, I put my name on it. This is what optimism looks like to me. In the near future, I will be making under the hood changes to the blog to promote this. When I’m done with Daily Good Stuff, I’ll be moving on to another type of featured post that will really dive into this optimistic goal.

Be optimistic.

What is your optimism?

You know, this blog is called “Dante’s Optimism”. Recently, I was thinking: What does that really mean? It means, this is my take…or my way of expressing my “optimism”.

Of course, this means you have your own optimism. You’re optimistic about things, right? You gotta be. Something has to get you out of bed. So, what I want to do is launch a new series that is completely made by you, my Optimists. I want you to tell me what you’re optimistic about. What is your optimism?

How will this work? Well, you can comment on this post (or the page dedicated to collecting feedback). I want a story, but it doesn’t have to be. Just a few sentences is fine. Speak how you want to speak. Say it how you want to say it. This blog is my way of saying it. You might have a video. Poem. Dance.

Anyway, let me know. Then, I will publish them. I will do it either here or the newsletter (I’m leaning towards the newsletter). The post will be titled something like this: “Mary’s Optimism”. I’ll figure out the people with the same name but, you know, it’s perfect. It’s yours. That’s your viewpoint. You can share it with your close ones. I also like this idea of people reading these views and feeling inspired.

It’s sort of like the Tuesday Testimony feature, right?

So, since this feature is run when I get feedback, I have to wait on you. If the Optimists speak up, we can get this started. Again, I’m leaning towards making it a newsletter exclusive, but it might depend on how much optimism I get. If it’s enough to do something weekly, then it’ll be on the blog. If it’s not a lot, then it’s a newsletter posting.

Huh, I think I just figured out something. My blog will contain weekly material and the newsletter would contain monthly material. I can do that. So, to get the full experience, you would need to be linked to both. Ha! Sorry; I want people on this newsletter. Those of you that have been reading this blog know I rarely push things like this.

But, anyway, share your optimism today!

Optimistic News: New but old series

Let’s try this again. Another weekly news feature. Shake my head.

  • No, really, first I had Weekly News, which was the first featured post ever on this blog.
  • Then, I did “Good News Friday” Lord. I called myself playing on the “Good Friday” theme by putting “News” inside. Okay.
  • Then, I knew things were bad when I launched “Fearless Friday”.

I’ve done it daily too.

  • Daily Good Stuff had, among other things, positive stories in the early strong days of the series.
  • I did Daily Good News, which was essentially a spin-off of Daily Good Stuff. Nobody liked reading that. Nobody. My goodness.
  • It was sort of part of the “Daily Positive” series where, each day, I would post some random positive thing whether news, quotes, or whatever.

So, like I said, HERE WE GO AGAIN. But, I think this time I got it.

So, the only real difference between the other weekly news stuff is the title. It’s lining up with the blog’s name (it’s a better look for uniformity).

I spent a great deal of time choosing the name. I did “positive” and “good” news in the past because that’s usually what people look for. If you do a typical search online, you’ll notice “optimistic news” really doesn’t do as well as “good news” or “positive news”.

So then, why did I go with the least popular? Why put myself at risk to not get as many views as possible? There are potential reasons.

For one, I simply love the word “optimism” and the variations like “optimist” and “optimistic”. I really do. When I renamed this blog, I just really…optimism really spoke to me. So, I had to go with it. And, as I really promote the word in these recent days, I really have come to know that I truly care about that word. It’s a word that isn’t used often, but it’s really better than the synonyms you’ll find. One word that usually replaces it is “hope”. Like, “I hope it works out” vs “I’m optimistic it’ll work out”. But, you don’t really hear that second sentence, do you? Exactly.

Another reason why I named this feature the way I did was to build a uniform look with the blog’s name. It may not have been a big deal, but I thought it was needed. So, there you go.

As for losing out on potential views, I actually don’t think I will. I couldn’t tell you why I feel this way. I just do. Maybe it’s because I don’t care. Like, I will write about what I want to write about and be at peace with how it all looks. I’m not really in the mood to change things up. I love this word and I’m sticking to it. I could be optimistic that the views will come. But, I’m not. If they come, great. If not, fine.

Each week, I’ll share a couple of stories that will hopefully help us feel better or…more optimistic about things. What’s that saying: Restore faith in humanity.

If you also paid attention to the way I am building my newsletter, then you also picked up how similar the content is to this new feature.

So, as you can see, I am unifying the blog and the newsletter in some ways. I am also trying to really focus and hone in on a particular style of blogging for this blog. Really, I’m doing a lot more focus on the “Optimism” part. I have to let other things go from this blog that don’t directly line up with pure optimism.

As for the day I will post the news…hm…my original news thing posted on Saturdays (or was it Fridays?). Eventually I moved to Fridays. I did some daily stuff. You already saw my mini rant at the start of the post. Now, I have Tuesday Testimony, which really seems to draw the most reaction, I’ve noticed but that’s not what this post is about. Heavens.

No, okay so I will launch this on Mondays. Well, either Mondays or Sundays. The idea is to start the week off with that mindset. Just like, with the newsletter, I want the month to start off right. See that? They work together nicely.

So, I hope you enjoy the Optimistic News, my Optimists. Let’s make sure to remember that there is good going on in this world, despite what you hear or don’t hear. Let’s try to remain optimistic about things, as hard as it may be. This blog is my expression of optimism. What’s yours?

Love: Can you earn love?

Basically a year later and I’m adding a new entry to the Love series. Since I’ll be making references to my previous posts, I will link you to the category dedicated to this topic. I suggest you read through the other posts.

The Love series.

Now, let’s begin.

I ask the question of “can you be lovable?” but it might not be in the way you expect. See, I’m not asking if you yourself can be lovable. I’m asking if we, as a people, can be lovable because, as you know, we are to love others. We love our family, friends, and enemies. We love God and ourselves. Everybody gets loved.

So, but, can we…earn this love? That’s my question.

It’s not a question of if we deserve it. That’s not quite where I’m going. I’m saying, can we do something on our end to bring out the love of others?

At first, this seems like a simple “yes”. I strongly believe it’s “yes” but…and by now, you know I always have a but. I mean that with one or two “T’s”. Anyway, I think we can earn love, but I don’t know if that’s something we should be doing.

See, if we earn love, that means somebody may not be doing their job of loving regardless of what you do or who you are. See what I mean? Like, if I’m a complete jerk to everybody in the office, I may not earn love from others. However, I venture to say it doesn’t matter if we earn love or not. We are supposed to be loved, as we are supposed to love everyone.

Ah, but I see what you’re saying. It can be hard to love people who go all out making sure they treat you like the scum of the earth. But, again, we are supposed to show love to our enemies. Now look, this doesn’t mean we just allow the hurt and hate to consume us.

That’s where I know I gotta explain because some of you didn’t hear the first part of this post.

The question then becomes how do you actually show love to enemies in such a way that it doesn’t appear to be like you’re letting things go like there’s no problem? It’s a combination of knowing what love is (I talked about this in the series already) and then projecting that love onto our enemies.

In fact, if we look at the primary definition of love as I wrote it, we see that you don’t actually need to have a personal relationship with someone to show them love. I think that’s what makes it really…easy. But hard. Ah…

Again, the cashier at the store, or your spouse. You can show them that same exact base love.

So, I think you get it, right? Like, loving someone does not mean you put up with their foolishness. If anything, you simply don’t resent the foolishness. You forgive the foolishness.

So, if we go back to my question of earning love, it’s a sad reality that we actually do earn love, but we’re not supposed to.

Put it like this: We did nothing…NOTHING to earn Jesus coming down to sacrifice His life for us. We didn’t live a certain life as humanity and Jesus was like “they got enough love invested. Time to cash out.” If anything, it was the opposite. The world was so f’d up, Jesus was like, “I wanna help them out”.

But, the world is all about earning. Earn that paycheck to live your life. Right? Whatever it is, whether at the office, in the arena, on the stage, or wherever. We earn. So, naturally, we feel like we need to earn love.

Really, this post’s question is the result of a mindset we have of the opposite side of things. Since we believe our love is only given to those who earn it, we also believe we have to earn love.

But that’s just not right. If the Bible pushes so hard on loving everybody, regardless of how they treat you, then I strongly believe that people don’t earn love. This is something that just is. Loving someone should be as constant as breathing or blinking. It’s a part of our makeup, in a spiritual sense. Our DNA is to love.

You know how when you blink, you just blink. Heck, you blinked quite a bit while reading this post, right? It’s like an automated function, but then, you can override it. You can consciously blink or not. Just like breathing. It’s an automated function but you can stop breathing if you want or take a really deep or shallow breath.

That’s how loving should be. It should be an automated function, no matter what. You shouldn’t need to think about it. You should just love.

Here’s something: Let’s say you hold your breath or keep your eyes open. Things get…painful…right? Right. Because, even though you CAN stop it, your body NEEDS it to happen.

I will venture to say it’s the same thing with loving. If you stop loving, it will hurt you, buddy. So, keep loving. Not loving can kill you.

I mean, God is love and God is life. So, in a way, love is life. Like, love and life go hand in hand. God’s love is a powerful force that can do things. Just His love. It’s actually hard to grasp but I am serious. His love alone has power. Ah, but maybe that’s another post.

Anyway, it’s time to move on from the idea that we earn love. We really shouldn’t be put in the position to earn love in the first place so that’s the answer to that. If anything, I could have named this post “should we earn love?” It sounded better the other way though.