This is special post this evening such things we would normally discuss on the back porch, but as I have shared with you earlier, we’re not able to get together there anymore, so I wanted to share it with you this way From the Pew. It’s really very difficult to have to write this but we live in a world today that thrives on hate. Respect for others opinions, civil discourse among the people in general and a love for that which is good is no longer the norm. Did a little bit of borrowing so to speak for today’s blog. In 1944 there was a hit song called Accentuate the Positive and its origin is as interesting as the song itself. The phrase originally came from a sermon given by a religious leader, Father Divine, it was overheard and turned into an Academy award-nominated song by Johnny Mercer. The timeless, uplifting chorus advises:  

“You’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive / E-lim-i-nate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative / Don’t mess with Mister In-Between”.

 Folks, I guess we should really admit to ourselves that we are really kind of in a downward spiral as far as attitudes go in this country. We need to accentuate the positive, highlight and celebrate those activities and focus on things that are going well. We need to get rid of all that pessimism doom and gloom, toxic mindsets that absolutely drain our energy. I like those lyrics say we need to latch onto the affirmative. How do we do that? We hold tight to our core truths, goals and empowering beliefs, rather than settling for a lukewarm undecided in between state of mind. By shifting our focus to the affirmative that becomes a powerful tool for resilience. We need to stop fixating on what went wrong and look at what we can learn from it so that we don’t make those mistakes again. I like one of the churches here in the city I live in. They’re going through a year of “Gratitude”. Start thinking about the things you are genuinely thankful for and then perhaps one of the more practical things you might try doing is to limit the time you spend engaging with the pessimistic news media, conversations that pull you into a negative place.

Not to pat ourselves on the back but we have always advocated here at The Pew that there’s a lot of things in the Bible that will keep us on the good way so remember Philippians 4:8…

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

And while you’re doing that, why not look up that song Accentuate the Positive by Johnny Mercer.

Thank you for dropping by The Pew, join us again this Saturday evening and Sunday for another blog fromThe Pew.

Life is Good

jk