Editorial: Transitioning on

As noted in my prior editorial (Winter 2011), this is a year of significant transition for DreamSeeker Magazine, most notably the decision to focus on the digital version and suspend publication of the traditional paper version.

The effects on my schedule of losing both my parents in the past year while taking on and learning a new job as seminary dean have continued to make it hard for me to give DSM  adequate time. In addition to contributing to format changes, schedule constrainsts have led to this merged Spring and Summer DSM. Although time will tell, my hope is to return to releasing subsequent issues on a more normal quarterly schedule.

DSM transitions will continue to unfold. Research into migrating a version of DSM to Kindle is underway (and has contributed to reformatting the DSM PDF version, available free online). Also, several columnists rightly see this transition period as a good one for column transitions. Thus Mark Wenger’s and Renee Gehman’s final columns are already behind them. Deborah Good’s final column will be in DSM Autumn 2011. Their many contributions over years as DSM writers have been much appreciated (and remain fully available online). I also remain grateful for the fresh writing of Brenda Hartman-Souder, still breaking in as DSM’s newest columnist.

Even as reader perspectives matter more than mine, I also think this DSM issue continues to demonstrate why I see publishing it as a worthwhile labor of love. Katie Funk Wiebe, Joyce Peachey Lind, and I seek to share perspectives on parents and life shaped by losing them. Hartman-Souder then takes us into the mind of a parent fearing for and cherishing her children. 

Deborah Good, Dave Greiser, Alan Soffin, Cynthia Page, Dan Liechty, Dan Hertzler, Nöel King, Jonathan Beachey, and Chris Longenecker range richly across expertise, finding voice, an atheist view of Anabaptism, tongue screws, response to to bin Laden’s death, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Rove, history rewriting itself, and more. They nurture me; I hope you experience that too.

—Michael A. King