The Dispatch

The local paper just got delivered. On Monday through Friday it gets delivered around 4:30 in the morning. For a long time the delivery car needed a muffler and I would often hear it making its rounds. The current car is quieter. Most mornings my routine is a combination of newspaper and coffee (and putting out the dog) before turning on the computer and reading some news and devotions; emails and face book updates. But on Saturdays the Dispatch becomes a Sunday edition even if it is the Satruday paper. It may arrive most anytime in the later afternoon or closer to midnight. Sometimes I have the paper read on line before the print version arrives. I get impatient. I tend to read the front page, the obits, and the local opinion submissions such as letters to the editor. I look for The biz buzz to see what business are coming or going. I scan the North Country section and look for familiar people in the celebrations section of weddings and anniversaries. I often see church member’s faces in there! Some people scour the sports page but since both kids are away from Brainerd and not in sports here, my skimming of local sports goes quickly. Of course we zoom in on school news and church news. I still wonder why the religion or church page gets tacked onto the back part of the sports section!

What I have always appreciated is the fact that local papers are local. I can’t count the number of times Nick or Sara were pictured, or noted in the paper and people who know us will faithfully clip and save or mail the article to us so we can have copies for grandparents and all. Last week a photo of me was used on the front page regarding the digital TV change over and how it might interfere with church wireless sound systems. I knew absolutely nothing about the topic, but they needed a local picture of a pastor holding a wireless microphone and I guess it was my turn. .And the photographer is from this congregation. (Don’t get me wrong. I loved the attention for me and the church) Over the years I have enjoyed being a contributor to church page articles and “clergy view” writing opportunities. I have not found that to be a common opportunity in major newspapers and it is getting to be rare. The Star tribune has yet to contact me! Will future pastors have such a chance?

Now don’t think I am all idealistic about this. I have to admit some real embarrassment about some of the Vox Pop and Letters to the editor that I read. I hope that we don’t feed too many stereotypes about small town gossip or politics. Last week a letter to the editor was from someone denouncing by name, the local Lutheran churches for not taking a stand against a recent denominational issue. If I were in the Lutheran’s shoes I would not have appreciated that attack and perhaps the paper should not have printed it. But then today I see someone else wrote a helpful response to that letter.
Anyway, I hope this form of the media can survive. The on line editions just wont feel the same if the print becomes extinct. So excuse me while I leave the computer world of news, blogs and face book., and take the paper out to the screen porch, to a rocking chair, with crickets and night sounds, to unfold the pages, feel the tactile nearness of this information in my hands, enjoy the pictures, and read the names of people I have come to know, whether I have met them all or not, in the local newspaper; from here mostly. Mostly just for us.

Rambling on