slice-of-life profile

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Walking 12 miles, meeting new people and being outdoors delivering mail to her neighbors are a major part of Nancy Workman’s daily routine.

Workman loves her job as a mail carrier in our community because of its unpredictability.

“Each day I come in, and I have no idea how much mail there will be,” she said. “I love meeting the people on my route and getting to know them.”

She prefers her walking route to a driving one because it allows time for reflection and personal contact with those on her route.

Workman loves the freedom of the street, but dodging dog poop can be a real challenge.

“Dog poop can really ruin your day,” she said.

The difficult weather this winter presented the biggest challenge for Workman, but neither rain, nor snow, nor heat nor gloom of night could keep her from delivering the mail. However, it does keep her up at night watching weather forecasts and worrying about the next days’ storms.

“I really do love this job,” Workman said. “I plan to keep delivering the mail until I can’t walk anymore.”

Techy Bible: divine invention

I found an article online from the Chicago Tribune's Religion section that talked about the Bible being completely recorded onto CDs. It also mixed in parts of a business story about the Christian market.

The lead starts by painting a picture of one producer, and his quandary with finding a perfect person to record the voice of Satan. It uses expressions to draw the reader in and make it more comical, such as "Finding the perfect Jesus" and "making a deal with just the right devil has turned out to be harder than hell". It briefly describes the project, and then returns to a quote about experimenting with the part of Satan. I think picking this theme back up keeps the readers' interest. The next section is a little background about the size and power of the Christian market. It is interesting how they mix topics like religion, entertainment and business. Although the story was focused on several aspects of the product, I only saw potential impact "this is going to be huge!" as opposed to real reactions from Christians who would buy the CDs. Are they really excited about it because they think their children would listen to the Bible on CDs? Why would consumers want to buy this instead of just reading the Bible? I didn't get those questions answered. I would also like to have seen a tie-back to the role of Satan as a clincher for a sense of completion.

religion & medicine

I found a different type of religion story this week from the New York Times. It is a medical and religion story. The article by Nicholas Bakalar can be found online.

The story was about a recent study examining doctors' religious beliefs and how those affect their interpretations of clinical and scientific data. Although the lead is pretty straight to the point (hard news), it does convey the interesting results of the survey-- including doctors' opinions of divine intervention. Something that I thought was a good way to appeal to more readers was the advice about finding a doctor of the same religion. The idea of the study is vague and ethereal, but to give patients' specific advice from implications of the survey helps relate it to everyday people.It also points out the controversy even within the medical community about the topic. I would have like to seen some real people's reactions to the study, and ask them if they consider themselves to be religious or not. As it stands now, it reads like a university news release (may have been).

Virtual Worship- In SecondLife, nobody knows you're a lapsed Catholic

I read an article from Sunday's Chicago Tribune about the use of online churches for worship purposes. It can be found online here.

The lead is what really drew me in to this religion story. "If all goes well, the naked lady won't show up this morning when Pastor Craig Groeschel preaches his Easter service. But several cats will probably drop in. A horned dragon might perch on the crimson seats. There could even, perhaps, be an emu strolling in." When I first read it, I remember being shocked, and obviously intrigued since I kept reading it. Another aspect that I liked about the article was an explanation of the church's online service, and a comparison to other lifelike games on the internet. The reporter even got a comment from a member of the clergy who is an avid gamer to comment about the use of the site. Although the use of online characters (avatars) was explained early in the story, I didn't understand the lead until I was almost done with the article. Also, the benefits and drawbacks to worshiping online were discussed. The reporter also included the number of avatars that visited the church in one day, and compared this to other sites where avatars interact so readers can gage the impact and popularity of these sites. Overall, I thought this was a well-written and interesting article about a topic I had never heard of before.

Islamic Art bridges cultural gaps

I was really intrigued by the Chicago Tribune's religion coverage, and decided to critique a story from March 30 online called "Art offers window into Islam". It can be found online.

The article starts out with a story about how table tennis tournaments bridged the gap between American and Chinese cultures in the 1970s, and relates this to the similar power Islamic art can have. It then begins by discussing the potential with the exhibit curators. I liked how they described the art, and related it to a greater understanding of Islamic culture. However, I think it would have been interesting to hear from a Muslim, discussing what this art means to him/ her as a member of that culture. A real person is included in the story, commenting on how similar Muslims are to members of mainstream culture through her interpretations of the art, but this is reserved for the last three paragraphs. I think it would have been more powerful to include this information at the beginning or in the lead, and then tie back to it at the end. The comments from curators are important, but of course they're going to say these comments. They are experts on the art, not common everyday people.