Many years ago, when babysitting, I remember overhearing a little (about three- or four-year-old) girl I’d known since babyhood praying for God to please bless a long list of her school friends before clarifying, in case it was not yet obvious, that her request was for God to only bless the guhls … Not! the boys.

On Placement

I’ve been giving a great deal of thought lately to right place and loved learning recently that, perhaps, what Darwin really meant by survival of the fittest had less to do with brawn than complementarity.

Many times, I’ve noted what can only be described as an undeniable feeling that a particular situation, workplace, or friendship is, simply, indigenous to my identity. Almost every one followed a period of intense prayer.

As a kid, I remember feeling so glad to have found a summer camp I loved and recall middle school moments of total joy sitting on our lodge’s front steps, hopped up on Jolly Ranchers and listening with the dearest of friends to music I loved. At other times, and in adulthood, a sense of fulfillment has, of course, been much more subdued and service-oriented, although just as unmistakable.

Lately, it has felt important to recognize that while right-feeling scenarios do feature a certain ease, joy, and momentum, there are times when major challenges can also seem to follow prayer.

Why, I’ve wondered, does the form such experiences take change so markedly as I grow? And why, sometimes, does right fit seem to be so illusive?

I know I have a great deal for which to be grateful. But during times that feel very frustrating, and particularly when I seem to be facing injustice, the gap between having a reason and having a right to feel angry being so wide, I find myself wondering more: am I supposed to change a given situation, is it supposed to change me, or does the answer lay in some combination?

On Rhetoric

Rhetorically speaking, I have felt appalled of late by what seem to be constant invitations to engage in cultural critique along a rigid two-dimensional liberal-conservative continuum when, as I have written before, I feel this debate-framing is too often a trap designed to prevent critique of media company business models. And it has been devastating to see so many fall into one or another ditch, so to speak, along the road to a more collaborative collective future. (Like goal posts, these ditches still seem to be, for some, practically the whole game.)

But just as in other life challenges, I feel it is important not to simply conform to what is ill-fitting, but to carve out room where it is appropriate to do so.

I believe news organizations that operate almost exclusively in the arena of nuance while going to great lengths to prevent nuance from being articulated – presumably because such articulation would tend to de-escalate needlessly inflamed debates and result in the solution of problems that could, left unsolved, be leveraged indefinitely as profitable spectacles – need to be confronted. (Refraining from doing so would arguably be as logical as responding to gender-based discrimination and abuse in media by ending journalism itself or addressing global warming by breaking all the thermometers in the world.)

But we all need to be willing to listen and to make changes in negotiating a better future, continuing to root for the well-being of the constituencies of which we are a part, certainly, but also remembering we’ll need to work together to get there.