I am taking a different tack today, and giving you something beside football to think about, on this first day beyond the darkness of the Winter Solstice and three days away from celebrating the Light of Hope.

The past 24 hours have been dark on the calendar, but also dark in the lives of some real people I know too. And the contrast between the sorrow in their lives yesterday, and what I saw on TV this morning, just leaves me shaking my head. I need to pour it out.

It started yesterday about noon. I was on the phone with a lady who is a business associate and a good friend, even though she lives several hundred miles away. Our call was interrupted and she put me on hold. She came back obviously shaken. Her close friend was dying of cancer she told me, and they were calling to say they had just put her in the hospital, hoping she could make it through Christmas. My friend told of the road they had traveled together as she had been there for this lady, and for the children that she will leave behind, one of whom is still in high school. When the mother couldn't take her son on a college visit, my friend did that for her. When she couldn't help with filling out the college applications, my friend was there for that too. My friend told of how the son was a good swimmer, and how she had helped the family get him an athletic scholarship. And in the ultimate act of friendship, the ultimate irony of this buying season, last night she took the boys shopping to buy the new suits they will soon wear for their Mother's service.

Later yesterday, I was driving in, just as Jenny was driving out. She was on the way with her woman's group from church to deliver presents and groceries to a family they were helping. The mother was working two jobs, 11 hour days, raising this family alone, because the father had run off and left them. The women of the church were making sure there would be something under the tree for the children, and groceries in the pantry for Christmas Day.

As I pulled in the drive, and Jenny pulled out, the Mitch Albom show came on the radio. I love to listen to Mitch, even though his show hails on WJR from that state up north. Author of Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch's books have sold 28 million copies. I have read them all, including Have A Little Faith, in which Mitch tells the story of Henry Covington, a former drug dealer, drug addict, and convict, who found the Lord and was serving him through a ministry for the homeless, in a run down church in the inner city in Detroit. It is an inspiring story, and just Monday, Mitch and Henry were in New York City, on the Today Show, talking about how together, they were making such a difference through Henry's ministry, about how Henry was feeding the homeless, both physically and spiritually.

Mitch was telling a different story though yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, one day after the Today Show appearance. As I listened in the car, on that darkest day of the winter, both the darkness and the cold crept simultaneously over the car and out of the radio. Mitch Albom was sharing with the world that his friend Henry Covington had died. He slowly, softly, and painstakingly told of Henry's story, and his gut wrenching death, until in the end Mitch could do nothing but weep and leave the air. I sat for a long time in the drive in stunned silence.

One day. Three families. Three sorrows. Three real tragedies.

I thought of those tragedies early this morning, as I rode the stationary bike and watched the news. The contrast was surreal. First up was a report that a company has a new video game out. I didn't even catch the name, but the object of the game is to pretend you are special ops and see how many people you can kill or blow up. The news report said the game has grossed something like $6 Billion in 6 weeks or some obscene figure. The company said there are something like 100,000 players who spend an hour or more a day on make believe death.

That was followed by a report of a new reality show, in which brides to be compete with each other, to do stupid things on TV. The winner gets a free plastic surgery body makeover to become the "Perfect Bride." As they showed the winner, with the finished Barbie Doll body, I wondered, what about the inside?

My mind bounced back and forth between the reality of the three tragedies, and the tragedy of what the TV called reality. It dawned on me how much TV and digital entertainment has numbed us to what actually is real and blinded us to the cost of glorifying what isn't.

I couldn't help but think of my friends. What if the doctor doing that reality plastic surgery had instead spent his time seeking a cure for cancer. Would my friend's friend have a chance to live? Would thousands of others across this country have that chance? What if the people programming and pedaling that game of death, were instead making their life's work like the work of Henry Covington's ministry? Would less young people be gunned down on the streets of Detroit, less homeless seek shelter in Henry's church with the hole in the roof, less children be abused and battered ?

Why, I asked myself, do we spend so much of our national treasure rewarding trivia and glorifying violence, when we have so many people hurting and so much need for love and compassion? Why can we fork over $6 Billion so those who pedal imaginary death prosper, but turn a blind eye to the real deaths Henry Covington's ministry is struggling to save on the streets of Detroit?

I don't have an answer for those questions. But I do have some advice for the entertainment industry. Look yourselves in the mirror. Next time you want to film a reality show, go to the cancer ward. Go to the I Am My Brothers Keeper Ministry. Those things my friends, are reality. And they're all around, even as your cash registers go ching ching, pedaling video death and destruction in celebrating this season of the Birth of Jesus.

In my post below I offered the gift of reading and some last minute book suggestions. I would like to amend that tonight, and suggest that you could do no better than Have A Little Faith, by Mitch Albom. I am one hundred percent sure a portion of the proceeds will go to continue the work of Henry Covington. And I am one thousand percent sure you will be a better person for having read his story. During the darkness of his death, it is the season to remember the light of his hope.