{"id":3643,"date":"2017-09-08T18:35:44","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T18:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=3643"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:31","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:31","slug":"wm-springsummer-2017-walking-beside-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2017\/09\/08\/wm-springsummer-2017-walking-beside-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"WM Spring\/Summer 2017: “Walking Beside Each Other”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each\u00a0edition of Wabash Magazine<\/em> begins as\u00a0a theme, but the cover title develops organically during the gathering and editing process\u2014sometimes precariously late\u2014as our stories take us deeper and the issue becomes more personal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s kind of like naming babies the first time you really meet them.<\/p>\n

Last winter\u2019s \u201cadoption” issue became \u201cGetting to the Good\u201d after Professor Bobby Horton used that term to describe his family\u2019s growth after adopting his daughter Maesa, and those words just seemed to fit so\u00a0many other stories in the magazine.<\/p>\n

WM<\/em> Spring\/Summer 2017 began months ago as a holistic look at men and mental health with the theme \u201cMind, Body, Spirit.” That guided the\u00a0Big Question we asked\u00a0alumni for the issue: “How do you take care of yourself physically, mental, emotionally, and spiritually?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But the candor and vulnerability of pieces like Tim Padgett\u2019s on depression, Bob Royalty\u2019s LaFollette Lecture dealing with his father\u2019s suicide, and Scott Dreher\u2019s essay grieving the death of his son took us from the idea of mental health to people\u2014our people\u2014coming to terms with some of the most difficult moments a person can face.<\/p>\n

There were times when editing this issue felt like I was walking\u00a0with a good friend trusting me with his most important story.\u00a0One part gift, one part responsibility.<\/p>\n

But we didn’t have a title until I was editing\u00a0Christina Egbert\u2019s excellent article about the people and inspiration behind the College\u2019s new Mental Health Concerns committee. Looking to add context, I thought of Professor Anne Bost\u2019s words to grieving students at a memorial service for Luke Borinstein \u201920 about this time last year. She attributed the words to Professor Eric Wetzel, who would be quick to credit health care innovator Dr. Paul Farmer.<\/p>\n

But Anne\u2019s use of Farmer\u2019s phrase \u201cwalk beside each other\u201d in this setting\u2014as well as Eric\u2019s application of that phrase in his own life\u2014tells you something essential about Wabash teachers and this place. To\u00a0a Chapel full of young men a month after Luke\u2019s death and only days after the death by suicide of Austin Weirich \u201918, she said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are meant to love one another, so don\u2019t try to go it alone. I encourage you instead to be present with each other, in whatever ways are genuine for you. As a friend of mine wisely advocated, ‘practice walking beside each other,<\/em> not just physically, but intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.’\u201d<\/p>\n

So the weekend\u00a0before designer Becky Wendt received the stories and photos for this issue, \u201cMind Body Spirit\u201d and all the cover ideas for it went out the window\u00a0as\u00a0WM<\/em> Spring\/Summer 2017 became \u201cWalking Beside Each Other.\u201d Becky could have freaked, but instead she came up with the idea that became our cover. Rich Paige and Adam Phipps \u201911 provided the shadows and Kim Johnson photographed them on our Alumni Terrace, among other places.<\/p>\n

Becky had been taken by\u00a0the photo Bumper Hostetler \u201976 had sent in months earlier of his grandkids walking together and she placed it as our Last Glance.<\/p>\n

An hour\u2019s search of the bricks on the Alumni Terrace turned up Bob Allen\u2019s inscription\u00a0for the Contents page:\u00a0\u201cGrateful that I walked this way.”<\/p>\n

President Hess and professors and students had returned earlier in the summer from a long walk in Spain, and “Lessons from the Pilgrim’s Road” become From Center Hall<\/p>\n

Look at WM<\/em> Spring\/Summer 2017 now\u00a0and you might think\u00a0\u201cWalking Beside Each Other\u201d was our idea at that first planning meeting many months ago.\u00a0But that’s not\u00a0often the path at WM,<\/em> or at Wabash, or by Wabash alumni, come to think of it. All that questioning, all those possibilities, the new connections and ways of seeing happening every day\u2014its\u00a0hard not to get caught up in the flow.<\/p>\n

And we get to tell the stories.<\/p>\n

\u2014Steve Charles<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each\u00a0edition of Wabash Magazine begins as\u00a0a theme, but the cover title develops organically during the gathering and editing process\u2014sometimes precariously late\u2014as our stories take us deeper and the issue becomes more personal. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":3646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2017\/09\/allen-brick-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3643"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3867,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions\/3867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}