In journalism, the motto is “If it bleeds, it leads”. The more disastrous a story, the more likely it is to get a lot of play in the media. I have tried to offset that tendency at my blog by highlighting little-known stories of grace which show that God is working in this world. I think in heaven the stories that get the most “press” are stories like the ones below.

The Top 10 stories from my blog in 2009:

1) If you kill me, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell. One of my most popular posts, the embedded video tells the story of an elderly woman who stopped an attacker in his tracks with the Gospel.

2) Joyful Sisters. The story of a woman who found her vocation through the witness of joyful sisters.

3) How could you have brought us to this insane place? The story of what happens when a Baptist minister visits an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

4) You know Catholics. A woman does her part to fulfill the command of Genesis 1:28.

5) Born again at 90. A man reads the Bible in his old age and becomes Catholic.

6) My mom dragged me into Church and I ended up a priest. The story of an Evangelical who goes to a Catholic church unwillingly and ends up a priest.

7) Vocations crisis! A post about the “problem” the Nashville Dominicans are facing.

8) Came to Church for the girls, ended up a priest. The vocations story of Msgr. Charles Pope, who initially came to church for less-than-ideal reasons.

9) I did not understand how people could pray to a weak and dying God. The power of the Gospel takes hold of a Sikh.

10) Sisters come home. An order of Episcopal religious sisters decide to swim the Tiber.

We can get caught up in the negative news which the mainstream media makes part of our daily diet, but we must always remember that God is active in this world: we just need to open our eyes to see it!