Skip to footer

Readers Write: There may be cause for hope after all

Letters to the editor for the January 24, 2022 weekly magazine. Readers discuss the joy of listening to children’s ideas and the importance of positive, global perspectives. 

|
Staff
  • By Monitor readers

Listen to the kids

What a joyous choice you made to feature fifth graders as futurists in the Jan. 3 & 10 cover story, “Flying cars and houses on Mars.” Delightful from the cover photo to the last period. It’s been a long time since I watched the comedy series “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” and it was a pleasure to hear the kids’ voices. I fear some may criticize the lack of seriousness of the feature, but the kids repeatedly asked for a kinder, cleaner, and more peaceful future, and who can argue with that dream?

The Monitor staff’s decisions, reporting, writing, and photographs are keeping my head above water in this most troubling time. Thank you all.

Jane Everham
Fort Collins, Colorado

New perspectives spark hope

Reading The Christian Science Monitor almost always gives me a vision of hope for this troubled world. The two editorials under your “Perspectives on the World” section of the Dec. 27 issue did just that.

In the editorial “A need for aid puts a spotlight on women,” it was so encouraging to learn about how women in Bangladesh have banded together to send out warnings of coming weather disasters, helping people go to the shelters that have been put in place. I believe that as more and more women respond to crises around the world and assume leadership roles, we will see progress. I was also pleased to learn in the editorial “How textbooks change a nation” that the Saudi Ministry of Education has begun to change the emphasis in school textbooks from “hate and fear” to “more moderation and openness” toward others. It is a hopeful sign. Perhaps other nations will take notice and follow suit. 

John E. Huegel
New Braunfels, Texas

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Readers Write: There may be cause for hope after all
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Readers-Respond/2022/0122/Readers-Write-There-may-be-cause-for-hope-after-all
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe