inconsequential blogging

There are days here at the Daily Journal, like today, when I’m just about worthless. I’ve piddled around today, pecking at the keyboard, staring at that blinking red light on the phone, knowing all the time I should be chasing down stories, working the phones. But, I just can’t do it.

Sometimes I really get sick of listening to my own voice, reading my own work.

They say Thomas Aquinas, at the end of his career, told his people to burn everything. Well, I understand, but the only thing I share with Thomas Aquinas is my ever-increasing waistline.

I think the interview that’s going to be in Saturday’s paper, with Bishop Joseph Latino of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, is the best interview I’ve ever done. I can say without exception that the bishop was the most candid, unguarded subject I’ve ever asked a question. Really good guy.

I’m not so popular in conservative Catholic circles, but I think even the Medieval folks will like this one. The bishop said things that people of all faiths can appreciate. He really blasted FOCA and said some challenging things about Mississippi’s immigration policies.

Next week’s feature is keyed up and ready to go, also. It deals with Lent and weaves together threads such as Mississippi being the most religious and the most generous state. I need some art to go with it, though.

Follow up thoughts on “Hearers” 2-14

Writing is a process that gives me great pleasure but also costs me a lot of restlessness and worry. No sooner that something goes to print I immediately begin to second guess myself. I suppose that’s a sign that I take seriously the subject matter.

I can stare at something for a week, make several revisions, and still fail to see things that only become apparent to me once it goes out to 90,000 readers.  I just hope that my readers know I take the responsibility of writing very seriously and I try, to the best of my ability, to get things right and to be fair.  

I feel passionately about the subject of this week’s Hearers of the Word. I think I made a fair and valid point, but, I wonder if at least one phrase is an overstatement.

I implied that the Catholic Church had viewed the modern world as its enemy. That’s an overstatement. Certainly the church viewed the cultural and philosophical movement called “modernism” as its enemy, but to equate that with the entire “modern world” is a little sloppy. I suppose I felt it was an economy of language just to say “the modern world,” but,  to those who are more precisely keyed into the theological nuance of the matter, it might have seemed sloppy. The church has never viewed the world as its enemy. That’s just an unfair thing to say.

Also, I’m not sure everyone would agree with me that, through Vatican II, the Catholic Church was “embracing a pluralistic modern world.” Again, “embracing” is probably an overstatement. “Acknowledging,” “ coming to terms with,” or “ authentically engaging in dialogue with”–these phrases might be more accurate. Again, trying to fit huge ideas into small space sometimes handcuffs me.

Still, despite these turn of phrases that could have been sharpened, the essential thesis of the column holds, that is that fringe groups often misrepresent the larger religions that they claim to represent.

Christianity, emerging part III

Whew! What a run on one subject, eh? Glad that’s over!  He, he. Seriously, though, it was a good set of interviews and I made a couple of new friends along the way. I thought people were very candid and fair. During the series I also got some calls from old friends around the area, mostly of a more conservative ilk, who were eager for more on traditional churches. I hope that part III satisfied.

My only concern, after reading the final draft, is that a person might read it as saying that the only way for traditional churches to survive is to adopt missional characteristics.  That wasn’t my intent, but it might read that way.

My readers know I’m Catholic, which I don’t hesitate to name as perhaps the most traditional church of all. So, I’m still sorting out how I feel about the whole missional movement. Regardless of how I feel about it (which I tried, as best I could, to leave out of the article) it really seems to a phenomenon that’s gaining speed.

I should give a little background here. About 3 months ago I attended a conference in Memphis. It was about the emergent church and Phyllis Tickle was the featured speaker. I really enjoyed it, and I knew that was a local story there somewhere, but I wasn’t quite sure how to tease it out. I talked with David Eldridge at Calvary, who’s familiar with Tickle’s work, and with Bryan Collier at the Orchard, long before I started writing the article. They helped me sharpen my ideas and sort out the language. It became clear that the way people in this area talked about “emergent” or “emerging” Christianity was the language of “missional.”

This week in Hernando, in between episodes of the Simpsons and Flight of the Conchords, I’ll be writing up the interview I had with Bishop Joseph Latino of the Catholic Diocese of MS. I’ve got that on tape.

I’ve spent the last two days on the phone gathering interviews for a piece I want to do on Lent. That will run 2-28. Lent, with its emphasis on self-denial and almsgiving seems like another of those teachable moments, particularly in this economy. I’m using a couple of articles that recently named Mississippi as the most religious and the most generous state in the country. I’ve tried to include academics, financial people, as well as ministers in this one. It seems like every story these days is about the economy, doesn’t it?

I’m sure I’ll get some emails about my column this weekend. Sometimes you just have to call things out the way they are. Bishop Williamson’s comments were inexcusable. I haven’t hesitated to call out Pat Robertson and John Hagee, so, what’s good for the goose, right.

Oh well.

addendum, Neighbors

Oh, you know, every time my Neighbors turn comes around, I think about Fred Rodgers. I hear him singing that song: “And when I wake up, ready to say, I think I’ll make a snappy, new day (one, two)…”

I do love Public Broadcasting.

upcoming Neighbors story

This past week I had the pleasure of working on a Lee County Neighbors story. My last Neighbors turn was back in September when I did a story on David Smith at Harrisburg Baptist.

This go round I’ve done a story on Lenton Smith (I’m two-for-two with “Smiths” for Neighbors) who is kind of a Jack of all trades out at Sanctuary Hospice House.

Lenton is a minister, cook, counselor and a real delight to know. Linda Gholston and Joyce Riley invited me out a couple of weeks ago to take a look at the facility and I had the chance to meet Lenton. She said she enjoys my work and we hit it off immediately.

I didn’t realize until just a few days ago that I had a Neighbors piece due. “So, Galen, how’s your Neighbors piece coming,” Bobby Pepper asked me at the water cooler.

“Eh?”

“Your Neighbors piece due in a couple of days.”

“Eh?”

I set to work right away.

Lenton is a bright shinning light, let me tell you. I wish I could fit everyone who wants to praise her into the story. Look for that on Wed.

P.S. Deste Lee took some beautiful photographs to go with it. Beautiful!

Thoughts on a Saturday night

I recently spent some time talking about the newspaper biz with an old friend up in New Jersey. She works for a smaller, more specialized paper and said she’s concerned because times are getting really tough. She’s really smart, knows the paper biz, knows theology, and if she’s concerned I suppose we all should be.

Talking to her made me think of the old days back in grad school in D.C. I am so, so, so, out of practice in theology. I am rusty, and that’s an understatement. I used to be right there, on the vanguard. I’m not anymore. I think at some point I made the decision, after being turned away from a couple of theology schools, to try and become a writer. I knew I’d never be Karl Rahner, or Rudy Bultmann, and, now that I’ve switched gears, I’m pretty sure I’ll never be Ernest Hemingway, either.

Mediocrity is a hard pill to swallow, isn’t it?

I like to read “The Mail” section of The New Yorker. Perhaps because I get so many opinionated, critical emails and letters, I take comfort in reading critical letters to another publication.

I recently enjoyed a letter sent in by a fellow who was criticizing a Jan 5 piece about alternative journalism titled “It Took a Village.” In it the critic quotes Dan Wolf, one of the founders of the Village Voice, who said, “The Village Voice was conceived as a living, breathing attempt to demolish the notion that one needs to be a professional to accomplish something in a field as purportedly technical as journalism.”

Wow, I like that. That’s kind of the way I feel about my newborn career in journalism. I’m just blundering along, trying to learn what I can from those around me. I think I have a gift for listening and for hearing the heart of a story. I worked as a lay minister for a while and I cultivated the kinds of pastoral skills that help when I’m doing an interview. However, I just don’t feel that I’m a very good writer. I take much too long to produce stories and I’m not aggressive enough to really do investigative reporting.

Emily LeCoz is a good friend and I’m constatly telling her how amazed I am by what she does. I couldn’t do it. Give me a week or two to work on a piece and I can give you something decent. Ask me to turn something out in a day and you’re risking the life of the paper it’s printed on.

I’m working on this. I want to get better.

One of the things I like make sure I have on Fridays is a couple of interviews in my bag to take to Hernando so I can work when I feel like it. I spend a lot of the weekend reading and watchign DVD’s of  The Simpsons, but, I also like to lock  myself away and work a little. This weekend I have some good stuff: an interview with Bishop Jospeh Latino of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, MS. I have that on tape. I also have an interview with Rev. Cheryl Penson of Lane Chapel CME Church in Tupelo. That’s for Black History Month. Todd Sherman, my good friend, shot a nice portrait to go along with the piece and my cubicle mate, Leslie Criss, will be expecting that by Tuesday evening.

Tonight my wife, who teaches school,  is helping pull off a beauty paegent that’s also a fundraiser. We have real objections to the whole business but she’s being a good sport about it.

I should be working while she’s away but all I’ve done is make hotdogs on the grill and watch three episodes of The Sporanos. Tomorrow she and I will attend the wake of a realative in Memphis, probably hit a restaurant out in Collierville/Germantown.

I’ve recently been talking to my good friend, Ginny Miller, about starting a FaceBook account. I told her, “Ginny, I don’t think anybody really cares to know what I’m doing throughout the day.”

No sooner that I said that, I make this entry.

Peace,

Galen