Editor’s Desk: Issue One
Looking in a mirror and recognizing our own humanity is hard enough. We ask ourselves, “Who am I? What am I? What is the purpose of me, of this world?”
So, when walking past a homeless person on the street, it is easier to keep our heads turned down, fearful of them asking for a handout. Much worse, we might look into their eyes and feel empathy and compassion. Acknowledging their humanity means acknowledging the sicknesses of our society. And who wants to feel the weight of the world on their walk to work every morning? It’s easier to look away; we navigate so smoothly in willful ignorance.
When Kate Marshall came to me with the idea of Mustard Seed Mountain, I was thrilled, but looking back, I was clueless. I didn’t understand what I was taking on, and I didn’t understand how much meaning was behind it. I had never worked at a real publication before, despite my education in journalism. After I graduated college in 2019, I served as an AmeriCorps service member at Grow Ohio Valley, spending my time in a pea suit, teaching kids about healthy eating and gardening.
Casting aside my personal doubts, I reached out to the International Network of Street Papers (INSP), a non-profit based in Glasgow that helps sustain more than 100 street papers around the world. They were ecstatic about our project and supplied us with all the resources we needed to get our feet firmly on the ground in this alternative media world.
I began reading stories from these papers, moved by tales of triumph and resilience. And then I realized that these stories are here in Wheeling, but they have been left unwritten.
That was when it clicked. If we shared the stories of our community, then perhaps we wouldn’t be so afraid to look each other in the eyes. I believe in the power of stories. I believe in the power of empathy and human understanding. This is what we hold within us, an amazing ability to relate. And this is what Martin Buber, a theological philosopher of the early 1900s, believed to be the specialness of our humanity. We are most human when we stand in relation with one another. Our heavenly bodies are tied to an Earth that we don’t fully understand, a universe whose mysteries will never be completely revealed. Can we not stand within this absurd reality together—is that not what we were placed here for? And if this wasn’t what we were placed here for, can we not at least recognize that we are all here together?
I don’t know the true solution to looking past our historical traumas; war and genocide, racism and classism and sexism, etc. But I think it could start, if just for moments at a time, we cast aside our fears, look each other in the eyes, acknowledge the absurdity of our place on this rock hurtling through space, and enter into true relation with one another. Perhaps then we can begin to rebuild the community we desperately need to move forward in this chaotic space.
A street paper provides a hand-up, not a hand-out. It provides dignity of work and of life. I hope when you read our paper, you recognize the bravery of those that are here with us, and stand in relation with them. The perseverance to live when you have nothing—that is bravery.