A Message of Hope from Edward Grinnan: All Are Welcome

Hi, it’s Edward Grinnan again from Guideposts, and this time I’m not talking to you from the woods with Gracie. I’m at the New York City offices of Guideposts.

As most of you know, we’ve been celebrating our 75th year anniversary at Guideposts in 2020, and one of our industrious colleagues actually dug up a copy of the anniversary issue of the 15th year of Guideposts, and that would have been in 1960.

It was really amazing to see how much the magazine has changed, but also how much, in many ways, it’s stayed the same. One line stood out for me from this account of Guideposts, it’s how the magazine described itself in 1960, and I’ll read it to you.

It says, “We’re a small magazine in which men and women, regardless of creed or color, can set forth boldly their convictions and bear witness to the power of faith to solve the endless problems of modern living.”

That was in 1960, and that was a pretty bold statement. And it’s amazing that we’re still having that discussion, 60 years later, about race and color and creed. And we want to continue here at Guideposts to be part of that conversation. So I’m inviting you to tell us a little bit about what’s going on in your community, as it applies to diversity and how racism has shaped you as a person and how you’ve experienced and what you think about it today. And what you’re doing to reconcile some of these conflicts that exist in society.

And if you have a story for us about that, send it to submissions@guideposts.org. That’s submissions@guideposts.org, and maybe you can put a subject line like, say, “Diversity” or something to alert us to it, that it’s one of these stories. Because we would love to hear from you on this subject.

Oh, and one other thing I’m doing while I’m in New York, I’m getting my first haircut in seven months. So say goodbye to all of this. See you next time. Bye.