Let­ter from the Ed­i­tor

Greet­ings Bethel, 

The world re­cently noted the one-year an­niver­sary of rec­og­niz­ing the COVID-19 virus as a pan­demic. This time last school year, we were all at home, un­know­ingly await­ing the news that the rest of the se­mes­ter would be com­pleted vir­tu­ally. This was the very last news most of us wanted to hear. 

That seemed to be the be­gin­ning of what has been a strange year. In ad­di­tion to the stress of a global pan­demic, racial ten­sions in Amer­ica pub­licly es­ca­lated on a na­tional level. The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion was un­usu­ally heated. The West Coast caught on fire and Texas froze. The re­cent mass shoot­ing in At­lanta is one of many hor­rific ac­counts of in­creas­ing vi­o­lence against Asians.  

These are only a few items in a long list of tri­als our world and na­tion has ex­pe­ri­enced in a few short months. And we haven’t even touched on the in­di­vid­ual level yet—loss of loved ones, con­cerns about fi­nances, un­cer­tainty about em­ploy­ment, un­for­tu­nate home sit­u­a­tions in­ten­si­fied by stay-at-home or­ders, feel­ings of lone­li­ness, over­whelm­ing strug­gles with men­tal and emo­tional health. It’s been hard, to say the least. 

As I re­flect on these events and ex­pe­ri­ences, there are two ad­mo­ni­tions weigh­ing on my heart to share with the Bethel com­mu­nity I love so much. First, be kind. Be em­pa­thetic. You never know what some­one else is go­ing through; you rarely see the pain they must en­dure. If they do tell you, if they trust you, if they’ve shared their pain with you, do not squan­der it or take it for granted. Trust is a gift and a re­spon­si­bil­ity that should never be taken lightly. 

Sec­ond, show re­spect to one an­other. There is a plethora of is­sues to dis­agree about right now, and it’s easy to get car­ried away some­times. But it does not mat­ter how “right” you are— in­sult­ing or de­grad­ing oth­ers is never a jus­ti­fi­able ac­tion. Even if you have the book, chap­ter and verse to de­fend your view­point, be­ing cor­rect is not a stick of au­thor­ity to beat oth­ers with. There are many gray ar­eas in life. There will be dis­agree­ments, and some of them will be painful. Some of them will give birth to right­eous anger. But none of them should lead to dis­re­spect of fel­low hu­man be­ings.  

Jour­nal­ism was built on the ten­ants of truth and re­spect. While there are many ex­am­ples of me­dia out­lets that seem to have for­got­ten those val­ues, I strive to stand be­side those ideals as Ed­i­tor.  

Let’s fos­ter the for­got­ten art of agree­ing to dis­agree. Let’s rebel against the ex­pec­ta­tion that cer­tain top­ics can’t be dis­cussed in a cour­te­ous man­ner. Let’s show the world the power of em­pa­thy and re­spect.  

Why should you care? Why should you try to be bet­ter and lead by ex­am­ple? Be­cause we are Bethel. This is what we are meant to do. 

Sin­cerely, 

Bri­anna R. Dens­more