I had originally thought to title this entry “Don’t Shoot The Messenger,” but apparently I have already used that title before [1], so I decided to go with a similar title that got the same point across. It struck me as I was thinking to write today about a matter relating to my own work that I thought about the precise same story I had thought about when writing the blog with the original title that I had in mind, about my faithfulness in being a courier of messengers from one person to another in my youth because my loyalty to friends outweighed my curiosity about the personal business they had placed in my care. At any rate, being a courier carries with it some serious risks as well as some major opportunities.

If one is a bearer of good news, one does not have to fear the result of one’s message. Good news is appreciated and everyone wants to share in it and enjoy in it and bask in the reflected glory of those who are giving or receiving good news. Being the bearer of bad news, on the other hand, is a much more difficult and unpleasant matter. Our own safety in this task depends on the goodness and fairness and sense of justice of the person receiving the bad news. How upset are they are the news? Are the sort of people who would take it out on those who were trying to do them a favor by providing them information, even if it was unwelcome, or would they separate the charity of providing honest information from the unpleasant nature of the news itself. Everyone, after all, is both a bearer of bad news and the recipient of bad news. The way we react (or not) to the bad news that we receive from others, from honest and caring people who want the best, even if it requires temporary unhappiness. I hope that I am a gracious recipient or bearer of bad news, both for my own safety as a messenger but also because I desire to know and deal with the truth in my own life, even if those truths may not always be pleasant.

Often at work I find myself being in the position of bad news and it deeply bothers me to have to be the one to inform others of unpleasant or undesirable realities, but my love of truth outweighs my discomfort at disappointing others. For example, soon there will be a lot of people disappointed by the bad news that their own hopes for health care access are not to be realized at the expected time because the marketplaces for such health care are not available. When one is responsible for passing along news and information from one party to another and that information turns out to be mistaken, those who bear the news, both originally and in revision tend to bear the brunt of the disappointment. All too often we take out our frustration and disappointment in matters of life and communication on the first people who happen to be available, and that usually happens to be those who deliver the message in the first place.

Let us therefore be both brave and noble if we have to be the bearer of bad news. Rather than complain about the difficulties and the unfairness of the messages we sometimes have to deliver, or quail in fear at the expected reply of those who receive the bad news (unless we have good reason, from prior experience with the people involved, to fear their response to the unvarnished truth), but rather let us be courageous and know that we serve a God who desires to be worshiped in spirit and truth, and desires sincerity as well as charity from those who serve Him and deliver His own messages to others. Let us not gloat in the bad news that we must deliver to others, nor let us abhor delivering bad news so much that we fail to fulfill our duties on this earth, but rather let us deliver such bad news as we must with love and concern for others, and with the hope that no matter how bad such news may be in the short term, that it will lead to a more lasting happiness in the future.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/dont-shoot-the-messenger/