'Such a time as this'

the culture wars and some important Examined Family announcements

My Christian Science Monitor cover story dropped Monday.

The police officer gives Marlon Styles’ driver’s side window two reassuring pats once he’s safely inside. Mr. Styles rubs his freshly buzzed head, takes a deep breath, and then fishes his keys out of his suit pants pocket and drives away from the school board meeting. It’s the latest he’s ever left – nearly 1 a.m. – and this time, unlike all the rest, he is not wondering how to get more community members involved. He is wondering how to grapple with a potentially toxic animus in his fairly harmonious town. The culture wars have just come home, and Mr. Styles, the first Black superintendent of Middletown, Ohio, has to figure out what to do.

In America, school boards have become something of a canary in the coal mine of democracy. Trust has been lost in our public institutions, including that most foundational of them: public schools. In a recent Gallup Poll, only 28% of Americans said they have “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence” in public schools.

It’s news to no one: School board meetings are broken. In cities and towns across the country, the public comment period has morphed into yelling, and sometimes even physical violence, over national hot-button topics like critical race theory (CRT), mask mandates, and basic recognition for transgender students. The National School Boards Association has fractured. In an official communication, the former executive director suggested that CRT-bashing and other strongly worded complaints might qualify as “domestic terrorism,” and most of the red states formerly in the association dropped out. In early October 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland warned the FBI and federal prosecutors that the Justice Department would be responding to “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” toward school personnel and board members.

Some public servants are preparing for more conflict by wearing state-of-the-art bulletproof vests to meetings. But there are others, like Mr. Styles, who seek out the protection of the oldest technology there is: trusted relationships…

This is an excerpt of a piece that I’ve been working on for much of the year and one that is very important to me. It’s the story of a town that fought back against the culture wars, not by direct opposition, but by a far more creative and collective impulse. Here’s the full article. (It’s the cover story of The Christian Science Monitor this week. If you live near a reading room, you can go check it out! Gorgeous pictures by Riley Robinson.)

Please read it, share it, and tell The Christian Science Monitor what you think. This is the kind of journalism I so want to put out into the world at this polarizing moment, and want to support others to make, so it’s really important that the world hears about it. The old adage in journalism is: “if it bleeds, it leads.” When we tell nuanced, solutions-oriented stories, readers respond, too; let’s let the world know.

---

Now some important announcements:

1. Remember that 75th birthday letter that I wrote my mom? The amazing Kelly Corrigan picked it up and turned it into an audio piece for her podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders. Take a listen. Thanks Kelly! You made me cry in a public library parking lot on Sunday.

2. Our book club is coming up soon! We’ll be talking about Needy by Mara Glatzel on June 30th at 9am PST / 12pm EST! RSVP here. Buy the book here. Mara will join us! We can’t wait to hear your thoughts, questions, and experiments with reclaiming your sovereignty. (We’ll probably cap it around 100 people, so get your spot before they run out.)

3. I’m taking a sabbatical in July and August! I’ve been planning it since last fall—inspired by the public conversations around the importance of restoration and reflection, not to mention my own dad’s sabbaticals when I was a kid growing up (they are some of my favorite family memories).

   I’m not going on any grand travels or attacking any big projects; instead I’m staying home, reading, writing, and staying off the internet (both email and social). My loosely held intention is to read a bunch of stuff I’ve written over the last 20 years (!!!) and reflect on what I’m most proud of (and not crazy about, in retrospect), and how I want move forward with my work as a writer and interviewer. I’ve had a weekly deadline for most of my career and this is also a chance to step out of that grind and have the emotional experience of not being a public person who is constantly getting feedback.

   What does this mean for you all? Well, first of all, I hope you’ll stick with me during this pause. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about it. I’ll schedule newsletters before I log off, so you’ll still be getting weekly dispatches from me (with the exception of the week of July 4th); it’s my sincere hope that you all will continue to comment and interact with one another, holding down the comment section until my return. That would be such a gift. I’ll dip in to make sure things are safe and kind from time to time.

   When I’m back in the fall, I’ll have an exciting new audio project to share with you! I’ve got some fun ideas for how to make the launch interactive, so stay tuned to be a part of that.