Inside Story

Sometimes (well, occasionally) the words and image that we put on our cover come together quickly, seemingly with little effort on our part. Doing the cover for this issue was not one of those times. On the bright side, we decided that it was so difficult to write a cover line for Jim Wallis' article on the church's new ecumenical spirit, and the five accompanying articles in response, because words don't convey the complexity and excitement of these developing connections in the church. We live a version of this new ecumenism here at Sojourners with a staff that has current or former ties to more than a dozen denominations. Associate Editor Bob Hulteen, being a good Lutheran, of course takes seriously the words of Martin Luther, such as "sin boldly." When asked whether he'd be wearing dark glasses and a disguise to go see the movie Private Parts as research for his "Worthy of Note" column, he said simply, "Heck, no." That's why he's the culture editor. Because of a last-minute (and expenses paid) speaking invitation to Sojourners, assistant editor Julie Polter recently found herself in Cairo, Egypt. She would have liked to have written about the ride through rush-hour Cairo during a rainstorm that turned the dust-encrusted windshield of her taxi into a mud-slathered windshield, which would have been okay, if the wipers worked and if traffic there wasn't like a bison stampede, only less orderly. But we asked her to write something semi-serious. She's been pouting ever since. Many thanks to the tourist who took the snapshot of her in front of a pyramid.