Ask the Editor: What’s the moral of the story?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday September 1st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up next, Ask the Editor. WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler now with a couple clarifications and a request.

PAUL BUTLER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: A couple weeks ago I got an email from California listener Elena Westmoreland after our news coverage of Hurricane Hilary on August 21st and 22nd:

KENT COVINGTON: Hillary is the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years.

Elena wrote in to let us know that’s simply not true. She writes:

“Look up Hurricane/Tropical Storm Kathleen in 1976 and Doreen in 1977. Both brought heavy flooding and damage to the Imperial Valley in the southeast part of California. My father-in-law even made the front page of the San Diego Union on their report of tropical storm Doreen as he was a farmer here that had field/crop damage.”

I clarified with our breaking news team and they confirmed that tropical systems do indeed affect Southern California regularly. In fact, just last year, Tropical Storm Kay featured 100 mile an hour wind gusts and severe flooding in Southern California. However, the distinction is that particular storm didn’t come ashore in Southern California.

As you rightly points out, Tropical Storms Kathleen and Doreen wreaked havoc on Southern California in the 1970s. But as with Tropical Storm Kay, both Kathleen and Doreen came ashore in Northern Mexico and then moved into Southern California. According to the Washington Post, only two tropical systems have made direct landfall in Southern California in the last 155 years. One in 1858, and the other 1939. That’s where the 84 year factoid comes from.

Having said that, our coverage could have acknowledged California frequently experiences the results from tropical storms. And we should have said that Hurricane Hilary was the first hurricane to directly hit Southern California in 84 years. That would have been more accurate. Sorry for the confusion.

Next, I want to tell you a bit about an internal debate going on around here. It concerns a segment from Thursday’s program this week. In Aidan Johnston’s profile of KathyGrace, the woman who tried to live as a man, about halfway through that feature she mentions how she had been asked by her church to leave when they found out she had been born a woman. At that point, KathyGrace didn’t want to change her lifestyle, so she just moved to another church.

At that church she worked harder to keep her secret. Yet after years of being involved in youth ministry, leading Bible studies, and even leading men’s programs, the truth eventually did come out. This time she voluntarily stepped down from leadership and embraced the long process of returning to her biological sex. That loving confrontation led to a change of heart.

At the end of Aidan’s story, KathyGrace says this:

KATHYGRACE: The church approach needs to be “we love you and we love you so much that we don’t want you to stay this way.” And loving them. Truly loving them. And knowing it’s the kindness that leads to repentance.

Some of our staff heard this conclusion as an endorsement of the earlier church’s response to kick out people who struggle with gender dysphoria. But that’s far from KathyGrace’s position, and it’s not what we intended to communicate. KathyGrace, and many like her, believe that the church needs to intervene, but lovingly, gently, and kindly, in her experience, that’s what helped lead her to repentance and full healing.

And finally this morning, a request. As faithful listeners you know that we begin every program with what we call a pre-roll:

CLIP: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me…

In recent weeks we’ve gotten a lot of listener pre-rolls that wish family members a happy birthday, anniversary, or mark some other family milestone. We enjoy hearing about your families, and wish you well in those special seasons of life. That said, we would like to move away from these sorts of pre-rolls. Part of the reason is because we can’t always air them on the day you want. But it’s also because while it’s meaningful for you and your family, the rest of our audience can’t enter into the celebration.. Birthdays and anniversaries matter, but there are a few other areas we think your fellow listeners would be more interested in hearing about. Here are some suggestions.

First, introduce us to some interesting places where you listen to the program. Perhaps you live in Antarctica and watch penguins out your backdoor. Maybe you’re doing short term missions work in Zimbabwe, or a medical internship in Poland. Or maybe like the rest of us, you’re just out in your garden or mowing the lawn. Let us know!

Second, give a shout out to the person who introduced you to the program. It could be a parent, a pastor, or a local sheriff who told you about it after pulling you over for a broken tail light.

Third, what sorts of interesting things do you do while you listen? Are you walking across America? Working the 3am shift at the local bakery getting donuts ready for the day? Perhaps you're listening right now instead of doing your homework or housework, you might want to get back to that.

Finally, perhaps there’s a favorite story or segment that you’re a fan of. Tell us about it. The sky's the limit. Be creative. Have fun. Bring some variety to our program. The biggest challenge will be keeping it less than 20 seconds long. But I’m confident you can do it, so give it your best shot. And if you’ve already sent us a preroll, but it’s been awhile. We’d love to get another.

You can send your pre-rolls to editor@wng.org. Further instructions are available on our website, and we’ve also included a link in today’s show notes.

That’s this month’s Ask the Editor. I’m Paul Butler.

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