Jul 262006
I subscribe to Newsweek, mostly out of habit than for its inherent informative value. It’s the kind of magazine that I can breeze through in 30 minutes or so and find one or two articles of interest, dismissing the rest as filler and fluff. Newsweek fell further in my esteem when a regular fluff-piece co-sponsored by Beliefnet started appearing in the magazine. Beliefnet is a religiously-themed portal site offering a lot of fuzzy, feel-good content that, from what I gather, is designed to make readers have a “There but for the grace of God” moment during their lunch hour. So it should be no surprise that Beliefnet wants to “put together a collection of stories and photographs of disabled people of faith accomplishing amazing things.” They set the bar even higher by asking that these stories be imbued with “courage” and “inspiration.”
Why, just this morning, I got out of bed. And soon, I will commit the incredibly heroic act of going into the office for a meeting. The fact that I’m not a “person of faith” might raise some eyebrows, but I think I can score some additional points by submitting a photo of myself in which I’m flashing a brave smile, though it’s still evident that I’m gritting my teeth in the face of tremendous, unimaginable physical and emotional suffering.
Once again, thanks to Ouch for the tip.
