Chair. Sunrise. Banana. I was given those words and told that later I would be asked to repeat them. There was a brief moment of panic, since I’ve always been bad at remembering names under pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then I realized I could make them into a sentence: \u201cAt sunrise I sit on my chair and eat a banana.\u201d When the words sound like the beginning of a story, they are easy to remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a long time now, I have been fashioning words and ideas into stories. Whether the task is a news article, a video project, or a board report, a story is often the best way to communicate. Stories disarm. They open a way. They help us make sense of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, my most regular writing has appeared in Messenger<\/em>, in this column that began in 1998 when then-editor Fletcher Farrar invited me to fill the space that previously had been \u201cFrom the editor.\u201d Today\u2019s essay is my 299th (and final) \u201cFrom the publisher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most frequent question asked a soon-to-be retiree, I have learned, is this: \u201cSo, do you have big plans?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be honest, I thought the idea of retiring was to not have to make big plans. I\u2019ve been planning curriculum projects, books, magazine issues, videos, reports, budgets, and strategies for almost 45 years. So my most immediate plan is to hand over the reins to other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This issue is the last with my name on the masthead, and next month’s will be the last with Walt Wiltschek\u2019s name. We are grateful for his years as at-large editor. Walt has brought a graceful spirit to his work whether he\u2019s the editor in charge (as he was 2004\u20132010) or the part-time at-large editor who ably pitches in where needed. It\u2019s his clever mind that’s been the source of The Exchange, a popular, award-winning page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My big thanks to the continuing members of the Messenger<\/em> editorial team, Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford and Jan Fischer Bachman. Together we have created space for writers and photographers to collectively tell the Brethren story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cheryl and Jan are being joined by Madalyn Metzger, interim executive director of Engagement and Communications, who is well qualified to be at the helm. I will leave the big plans to them, and see what not-so-big plans percolate for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stories disarm. They open a way. They help us make sense of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[49,723,722,38],"class_list":["post-5430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-publisher","tag-from-the-publisher","tag-plans","tag-retirement","tag-wendy-mcfadden"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5430"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5439,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5430\/revisions\/5439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}