Introducing wallwritings

James M. Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois.  From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine.  Jim launched this new personal blog April 24, 2008.

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Biography:

Journalism was Jim’s undergraduate college major at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He has earned two MA degrees, one from Emory, and one from the University of Chicago, both in religion. He is an ordained United Methodist clergy person.

He served for two years in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF reserve. While serving on active duty with the Alaskan Command, he reached the rank of first lieutenant.

He has worked as a sports writer for both the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, was editor of the United Methodist magazine, Christian Advocate for ten years, and editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine for 27 years.

The inspiration for Wall Writings comes from many sources that have influenced Jim’s writings over the years, including politics, cinema, media, American culture, and the political struggles in the Middle East.

He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region.

Wall Writings deals with all of these topics, and others, as they emerge, from within an understanding of the ambiguity of the human condition as perceived from a religious perspective.

Wall Writings was initially used by Jim as the title of his column in the Georgia Tech Technique, when he served as sports editor of that publication.

He often finds inspiration from cinema, like these Paul Simon lyrics written for a film.

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon God they made.

And the sign flashed out its warning,

In the words that it was forming.

And the signs said, the words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls.

And whispered in the sounds of silence.

These lyrics addressed the uneasy mood that permeated a rebellious period, the 1960s, a mood chronicled in Director Mike Nichols’ film, The Graduate.

“The words of the prophets” come to us from different places, like subway walls, tenement halls, poetry, movies, novels, and surprise gifts of grace that break through the mists of secular creativity.

Such a moment comes to us when first we encounter the deadpan expression of Dustin Hoffman, as Benjamin, a recent college graduate, who has returned to his stultifying suburban home. At a family party, the most important advice a friend of his father’s can give him is “plastics”. The only meaning Benjamin can expect in a godless universe is to be found in a successful career that gives him a home in the suburbs with a swimming pool out back.

Read the signs wherever you can find them, and then act upon them.

Header photo of  Chicago waterfront by Richard Wall

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