Nerine found this passage on prayer
and the news by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Once I tried an experiment by
showing an audience a sheet of white paper, with a black dot at the centre, and
asked them what they saw. With only one exception they replied, ‘A black dot’.
I then pointed out that the dot took up less that one percent of what they were
looking at. They had missed, discounted, or ignored the white sheet of paper
that gave the black dot its place. As soon as they realised this, we began to
understand why the media so often present a distorted view of the world – why
bad news is news, while good news rarely is.
The information that surrounds us is
all too often a litany of disasters – wars, famines, crashes, crimes, the clash
of politicians and fear for the future. Those who argue for more good news are
often accused of being naïve, or sentimental, of wanting to whitewash over pain
and suffering and corruption that exists in so many parts of the world.
The simple explanation is that news
is like the black spot on white paper. If the paper were black, we would not
even see it. Bad news is news precisely because so much of life is good.
Lawbreaking is noteworthy only because the vast majority of people are
law-abiding. Corruption hits the headlines only in countries where honesty is
the norm. The very fact that bad things are noteworthy is the most telling
evidence of the fundamental goodness of our world.
This, for me, is the power and
necessity of prayer. Prayers of thanksgiving bring to the foreground what is
usually in the background. They are acts of focussed attention on the white
paper without which we would not notice the black dot. They remind us that
without the dominance of kindness, we would be indifferent to cruelty. Without
faithfulness, we would be unmoved by betrayal.
Around us everywhere, flooding us
with its light, is the dazzling goodness of most of creation. Order instead of
chaos, diversity not monotony, the brilliant colours and intricacy of the
natural world and the hundred acts of human grace for every one of
gracelessness. The majesty of faith is that it teaches us to see what exists,
not merely what catches our attention.
What makes us human is that we are
capable of seeing existence whole, the landscape of beauty that forms the
backdrop against which we notice the ugly, the cruel, and the unjust. Prayer,
not the press, is what makes good news.
No comments:
Post a Comment