“You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.” –Meister Eckhart.

Good and goodness are sometimes overused in Unity and New Thought writings and oral communications. Good is a word with spiritual meaning as noted in Mark 10:18 NRSV: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” According to the writer of Mark, Jesus was replying to a man with a question for Jesus and the man referred to him as ‘Good Teacher.’ Jesus placed holy value on the word good, being a synonym for God. 

Good and goodness have come to be used and known as describing the fruits, blessings, attributes, gifts, and things Godly and humanly praised. We also apply goodness to refer to the outpouring plenty of the Divine Spirit. This is neither right or wrong, good or bad. 

Having come to be commonly used words, good and goodness may be used in the place of satisfactory, fulfilling, pleasant and pleasing or marvelous, great and favorable. These are a mere sampling of the many synonyms for these frequently used components of language.      

Yet, we may want to ask for more description of ourselves when we speak, write, and think of the words good and goodness. No doubt however and intimately speaking, in the back of my mind is the basic light-filled meaning of good and goodness–God and Divine blessings, which challenges me to choose these words applicable to something or someone expressing virtue and splendidness.  

Nevertheless, taking up the idea and usage of the words good and goodness add more value, clarity and freshness to our vocabulary and the ways we apply these popular and quite meaningful descriptive two words.