The Daily Positive: Sheriff Rescues Woman from Fire

It’s back, hopefully for a long time. The Daily Positive is a quick post with a quote and a piece of good news.

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An off duty Sheriff deputy helped save a woman from a house fire.

“Due to the intense flames crews were forced to combat the blaze from the exterior of the home,” Gwinnett Fire Lt. Jerrod D. Barrett said.

Prior to the fire department arriving, the Sheriff deputy assisted with rescuing a female occupant from the back porch using an extension ladder.

It doesn’t have to take a badge or paycheck to be a hero. The Sheriff did what he did most likely because that’s just how he rolls.

We Are Overdue for a Good News TV Channel

I’ve had enough!

I’m pissed off at people. Us. The population. News stations report what they think will get the most buzz and views. Same with TV shows and movies and more. In the end, everybody is selling something and, if nobody is buying it, they will shut it down.

We keep buying the sick news. The molesters. The killers. The racists. We keep buying it so news outlets continue to make sure it’s front page.

Isn’t it time we start buying a good news station? Isn’t it time something on TV promotes the good news that’s going on? An entire TV station with positive stuff going on. Remember shows like Extreme Makeover? TV shows that inspire instead of hate.

It’s time we hear AND see the good cop do a good deed. Let the other folks talk about the killings. I am not saying they should stop. I’m saying there needs to be more balance and it starts with us, the buyers.

If we start viewing more and more of the good news, people will take the hint and start promoting good news. I want us to get tired of good news and shrug when we hear about that hero. Stuff is happening every single day and we need to know about it so our spirits don’t die with the negativity.

For the love of…look, there are too many people with too much money. Somebody has to be willing to do it, but only if there is an audience. So, we have to be a hungry group of people, ready to devour the product.

It gets tiresome looking for good news to post. Are you kidding me? I have to really dig around to find some stuff. I’m tempted to be lazy and visit other good news sites but I generally do my own research. I sometimes can’t believe how far I have to go to get what I need. You type in “hero” and you’re lucky to find one. You type in “killer” or even just “kill” and it’s front and center who killed who and when and where before you even hit the link.

F that.

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Monday Motivation: Stay Optimistic

I’ve had just about enough of the shootings, and I think you can agree. I found myself barely reacting with the Charleston church shooting last week. Isn’t that sad? I live in a world where violence is the norm and it’s tired.

I had to shake off that despair and write this post. Stay optimistic. Keep your head up about the world. I can only tell you that there is good in this world. I ain’t gonna try to say “it ain’t bad” because it is. But, there is good.

Only you can control how you feel by controlling what you see and hear. Stay away from the 6 o’clock news for a minute and visit a good news website. Get a different perspective or you’ll turn cynical. You don’t want that.

Stay optimistic. But also, and I know you’ve heard it before: Be the change you want to see. Go against it, like I do with this blog. Each person can use the talents and gifts they have to fight whatever is going on.

Don’t give up on the world yet. Stay optimistic.

Dante’s Optimism

For about a year, I’ve considered a blog name change. I didn’t go through with it because the DALANEL hashtag was very dominant and the brand seemed too big to kill off.

However, I have now decided to change the name of the blog to Dante’s Optimism. This better matches other blogs like Dante’s Funny World and Dante’s Blog Network as well as Dante Ball.

Let’s go ahead and confirm: I’m full of myself.

If you didn’t know, DALANEL is an acronym of letters from my first, middle, and last name. DA for first name, LA for middle, and NEL for last. The blog was about me, so I named it about me. As time has gone though, I have changed the theme of the blog to good news and positivism. With that said, DALANEL was a name I gave the blog because it represented who I am as a blogger. Dante’s Optimism will do the same thing.

DALANEL doesn’t die, however. I’m still on dalanel.wordpress.com. I’m still going to tag things DALANEL. The only real possible change would be that this tag would appear on everything I write in my blog network. So, my humor and sport blogs would see the DALANEL tag. The DALANEL tag then represents “posts by Dante”.

Plus, Dante’s Optimism has a nice ring to it. You now “visit Dante’s Optimism” just like you visit my funny world. You want my optimism. You like my optimism.

So, there it is. Welcome to my optimistic world. The tagline remains the same: Bringing A Positive Spin on the World.

A Harsh Truth About the Fruit of the Spirit

I’m going to tell you something that I stumbled upon concerning the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, you can feel free to disagree. You can tell me how wrong I am. You can quit following this blog.

But, I have to say this because I play the role of the bad guy.

The harsh truth about the fruit of the Spirit is that, if you don’t have the Holy Spirit in you, you cannot produce this fruit. Only the Holy Spirit can produce such fruit.

In case you don’t know what this fruit is: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

That’s Galatians 5:22-23.

This means, if you do not have the Holy Spirit, you cannot love. You cannot truly love. That’s right. You cannot have nor bring joy. There is no peace. Forget about being patient. You can’t truly be kind. There is…there is no goodness.

Shake my head.

You don’t have faith. You just can’t. You can’t be gentle. You have no self control.

The Holy Spirit produces this fruit.

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A Light for Everybody

I’m sort of feeling some kind of way and this is some sort of rant. About what? About how some Christians have the nerve to be exclusive with their light or not even share it at all.

First of all, how dare you?

Who do you think you are that you can judge who gets light and who doesn’t? By light, I mean the story of salvation. Telling people about Jesus.

Are we a people who say this: Oh, she’s mean to me so I’m not gonna tell her about Jesus.

Are we only kind to those who are kind to us? Jesus was kind to everybody; even knowing what would happen to Him. Give me a break. He told us to love our enemies. So that’s it. We share out light with EVERYBODY.

Someone had to share with you. Don’t forget that. I don’t care how old you were or who shared it with you. Someone had to decide that, even though you were NOT a Christian. Even though you were not saved, “I still have to tell this person about Jesus”. Sure, mommy did it because she loves you. Still, she could have easily said “Nah, he bit my nipples too hard as a baby. He’ll have to find someone else to tell him”. I personally wasn’t breast fed so this ain’t a true story in my case. Relax.

Anyway, just as someone had to reach down to pull you up, you must turn around and do the same. Jesus did the ultimate reach down: He came down. He came down as one of us and decided to do the ultimate pull up by sacrificing Himself.

Imagine you’re in a pit. A very deep pit. The only way you are getting up is on somebody’s shoulders. But the only person strong enough to hold you is Jesus. Jesus comes into the pit with you, and hoists you up. But, Jesus ends up killing Himself in the process. He died so you may live. He knew He would die. It’s not like it caught Him by surprise, but He still went in the pit to get you out. But, in His power and glory, He was able to get Himself out of the pit. He’s just that great.

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