EDITORIAL
Grist for the Election

Michael A. King

As this issue of DreamSeeker Magazine goes to press, the U.S. presidential election is in full swing, and Election Day results will arrive while this issue remains current. Something tells me DSM will not change the outcome. And I’m not aware that authors in this issue wrote with the elections in mind. So no effort will be made to throw DSM’s ginormous clout behind one candidate or another.

But I will note this: With the advent of the Internet, blogs, and what some have said is now a one-hour cycle, depth is dropping from our national conversations. Though they have much to offer and are transforming news coverage in valuable ways, I am shocked, often, at what I see in blogs. Even if the main author manages to offer depth, what the respondents say is often mind-boggling.

When word broke that Sarah Palin was a vice-presidential nominee, I Googled her. And soon found myself in a morass of unprintable blog comments that revolved around her sex appeal.

The writers in these pages do better. Whether serious or lighthearted, they offer depth. Engaging their articles will not tell us precisely whom to vote for, though the drift of some concerns does seem to favor one type of candidate over another. But the articles do provide grist for this election through the types of issues they address and the ways they engage them.

Take Vince DeGregoris on anger. Amid the anger spewing from blogs and political parties, here is one of the more thoughtful treatments of anger I’ve seen—and in response to a prior thoughtful addressing of anger by Mark Wenger, whose current column in turn invites us to mentor each other into maturity.

Earl Zimmerman then invites us into that large and timely issue of what we do with war. More lightheartedly yet reminding us that deep commitments can have their humorous underpinnings, David Wright addresses sharp objects. While Wall Street and Main Street flirt with collapse, Dorothy Cutrell cuts straight to a huge election issue—money—even as Deborah Good connects with another: immigration and language.

Renee Gehman brings a light touch to her celebration of wondrous creatures. And Dave Greiser reports, of all things, on a lovable robot. Yet how pertinent both their columns are as we vote on behalf of one view of God’s environment or another while the oil runs out.

Jonathan Beachy spies light even in the shadows of how we handle prisoners. Amid election blather, poets M. Christine Benner and Leonard Neufeldt give us stanzas packed with meaning. And Daniel Hertzler draws us into theological depths.

Finally Noël King reminds us not to meditate too hard on all of this. Or, no matter who wins the elections, we may be gone, gone, gone!

—Michael A. King