Editorial: The Power of Secrets
Meets the Power of Using Truth Responsibly

Here’s a fact: Life is messy.
Here’s another fact: Love is messy too.
Here’s the bottom line:
Human beings can be complicated and frightening and hard to predict. We are filled with petty jealousy, genuine fears and cruelty. But that is balanced by stunning generosity, creativity and compassion.
So if you have made up your mind about your fellow humans, you clearly don’t know what you are talking about. Look again.
Community newspapers are in the reporting-about-people business. You know that by the stories we bring to you, week in, week out.

Failing Is Part Of Winning
We bring you news of young student athletes, prevailing against all odds from a tiny school to win personal bests, to strive, to conquer, and to fail along the way.
They learn to get up and do it again. That is how skill is built. That is how courage is crafted into the spirit of the young people who are fortunate to be growing up here.
We bring you stories of terrible accidents that change lives. We bring you stories of stupid blundering by government systems. And we bring you stories of the people who say: “Wait! This is not right! We need to press ‘pause’ and consider this for a moment.”

Hard Truths
Communities and individuals are strongest when they base decisions on good information.
We have to print hard truths sometimes. We are not happy to see bad things happen. We do not print facts because we are nosy. We print facts because we are responsible.
The Sheriff’s Log often carries tough facts. We do not cherry pick what runs there. When it is not the full story, we invite you to have your say about injustice, or a mistake by law enforcement. Just bring us the documentation.
The Mountain Enterprise brings you stories of those who understand that leadership in a community is the continuous discipline of discovering how to create more harmony than discord in the lives of those to whom leaders are responsible.

Secrets
Over five decades of reporting, we’ve learned some things.
Individual humans share one final destiny that can come at any time. We are all powerless before that same fact. We are wise to be humble before that fact.
Along the way, we have learned that secrets are a way of playing make-believe. They grow out of fear. They try to dominate and suppress reality.

Things Happen. Secrets Don’t Make Them Unhappen
Truth is a great liberator of the human spirit, but it can sometimes take tremendous courage to come to Truth’s doorstep and step over to live in acceptance.
Acceptance offers peace with reality, even if it is a reality that we will work to change.

Fear
Truth is scary because we do not trust other humans with it.
Tune in to social media. You see snark and nasty trolls taking pride in bullying.
But what shines through as the greatest power on social media and in community newspapers is the power of simple human kindness.
Kindness changes lives. It can vaporize anger, shame and the terror of being judged.
Kindness melts fear. It builds trust. Kindness transforms.

Just Don’t
Social media snark and rumor spinning can sting for a second, but kindness is a lasting shield.
Tune out snark. Don’t pile on. Stop to reflect.
DON’T PUSH SEND.
Just don’t.

Situations Evolve With New Information
There are those who will try to lobby for lies. There are those who will even try to bend the minds of children to lie in exchange for acceptance.
Recall the old parable of the powerful emperor who was sold the lie that he had bought a magnificent new robe worth a pile of gold and sparkling jewels.
The vain emperor strutted before the public. His subjects stood dumbfounded at what they saw, but could not speak what they were seeing.
They spoke aloud the lie that the emperor’s new robe was beautiful…until a little child peeked out from behind the crowd and said, “But the emperor has no clothes!”

Mission
The mission of this community newspaper is to bring you the
messy and sometimes inspiring
truths of life on this mountain,
because we trust you will use
that truth responsibly.

–Patric Hedlund, TME Editor

This is part of the January 24, 2020 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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