This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This is the second in a two-part blog series which asks two questions – (a) are things worse today than ever before (that was the first one), and (b) is it possible to look on the bright side (this is the second one)

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A Washington Post story made this point the other day:  “These gifts have nothing to do with holidays.  They’re about humanity.”

The writer, Petula Dvorak, started her story this way:

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“Miss Petula, there’s someone in the lobby here for you,” our security guard, Robin, said when she called up to my desk in our old 15th Street building.

“She has a lot, and I’m talkin’ a LOT of, um, diapers,” Robin said, a little uneasily.  “Can you come deal with this?”

“This is a story about the Christmas spirit — that bursting, full-hearted, pine-spiced, jingle-bell mood — that we’re all soaking in right now.

“Except that these diapers, this beautiful, thoughtful gift, came in April.”

Dvorak went on to cite other instances of neighbor-helping-neighbor which serves as a good contrast to what we see in the media every day – wars, rumors of wars, killing innocent civilians, homeless persons walking the streets, often amid bitter cold, and, then worse, Donald Trump issuing more tripe about immigrants polluting America.

On the latter, I cannot help but state this fact:  All of us, including Trump, are immigrants who have forebears who made a way to have a life in a free country, or are first-generation immigrants ourselves. 

Now, Trump would propose to make into the United States into an autocracy that would not tolerate anyone who was not White.

Okay, enough about Trump.  More about the bright side.

Dvorak continued her story:

“I had just written a column about Juan Jordan, one of the few single fathers living in what was once the shame of D.C.’s shelter system — an abandoned hospital that housed nearly 600 homeless children and their families — with his one-year-old daughter after he was laid off.

“Not only did readers send checks and gift cards for him, but several also showed up in our lobby with boxes of baby clothes, a playpen and this — a giant duffel bag of disposable diapers.  Because every parent knows how crucial and pricey these little things are.”

Why did this occur, Dvorak asks.

Then, she answers her own question:

“Because beyond politics and race, socio-economics, nationality, sexuality, and religion — the topics that occupy so much of our media diet — our humanity connects us through our struggles, our dreams, and our triumphs year-round.

“That human connection brings out the best in people.”

Plus, this additional story from Dvorak:  

“I’m so proud to contribute to this young man’s future.  I can’t think of a better investment to make than in America’s youth,” wrote Robert Scott Bass, in a message accompanying a $1,000 donation to the GoFundMe a reader set help send Kamari Felton to college.

“I wrote about Felton this summer, after he’d been accepted to Frostburg State University and was about to move out of a homeless shelter and into a dorm.  Then, all of his funding was yanked out from under him.

“The university and government officials finally got their acts together and restored his funding after we banged on in this column about the mess.  But in the meantime, in the swampy malaise of a D.C. summer — with no holiday cheer or spirit of Christmas to move them — readers raised $42,900 that won’t just get him to college; it also will help keep him there.”

So, to those who might say “things are worse today than ever before,” it’s not true. 

On one hand, there have been terrible times in other parts of our history, but, if you take time to look on the bright side, you’ll find stories of acts of human kindness and consideration that will give you a positive lease on life.

Further, at this Christmas season, it is good to reflect on the “reason for the season” – that Christ came to earth about 2,000 years ago to give us a way to have a relationship with Him and to value other persons as “real persons” worthy of love and connection.

Which makes bad things on this earth seem far less momentous.