I love garage sales for two reasons. For one, I’m cheap. 

As I write this, I’m sipping from a dented water bottle that only seals properly when I wrap it in rubber bands. I do not plan to buy a new one until this one is metaphysically incapable of holding liquid. Or until I stumble upon 10 dollars and a life-changing water bottle sale all on the same day. 

More importantly, I love garage sales as a means of storytelling. There is no other excuse to walk onto a stranger’s property and dig through decades of once-loved belongings. Old camping supplies, baby clothes and a deplorable number of James Patterson books. 

Based on nothing but the things spread across folding tables, I decide the vendor is an empty nester doing some spring cleaning to get extra cash for a post-retirement European voyage. Maybe he worked in finance, but that doesn’t feel right. He’s got a stoic, medieval-looking face. I imagine him working as the village blacksmith. Perhaps the town crier, even. 

So, inevitably, I decide to buy the stack of ‘90s LIFE magazines. Maybe it’ll pay for a cappuccino when Mr. Medieval is on the Italian leg of his European travels.

The point: storytelling – both journalistic and medieval-fantasy-based – is an integral part of how I see the world. And I hate to make an assumption, but I think storytelling is integral for you, too. Because you’re here. On the Clarion website. Looking for stories.  

This year, The Clarion will look a little different. We will be cutting back to one print issue each semester, turning our primary focus to web and social media content. In short, audiences are changing, digital media is growing and we’re broke. 

This scares me. It makes me want to write, “Print is dying! Save it!” on a sign and picket outside of an ornate white building that looks vaguely governmental, but I don’t think I’m the first person to feel this way.

I’m sure once the cavemen heard about the Mesopotamians carving clay tablets, they yelled, “Cave paintings are dying! Save them!”

And one thousand years later the Egyptians yelled, “Hieroglyphs are dying! Help!”

Skip a few more years, and here I stand with my pitchfork and torch.

But the reality is, whether you are listening to a finance bro podcast or reading a New York Times Instagram post or making up backstories for garage sale vendors, that’s all storytelling. 

So enjoy the stories that Clarion staff and freelancers decided to tell this month, from Caitlyn Stenerson’s decision to leave Bethel to fall athletes preparing for their seasons to the simultaneous burden and beauty of screen time. 

Storytelling isn’t going away – it’s evolving and it’s everywhere. The Clarion will be along for the ride. Even when the aliens come and we start telling stories through Vulcan telepathy.

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Stories in this issue

Bethel to Knox: Pastor Caitlyn’s next steps

‘You’re gonna have to pay for it’

Communal bathrooms are worth it

‘One foot in one world and one in the other’

A hands-on approach to education

Go Figure!

Business beyond Bethel

Exasperated alums: email account shutdowns

Run it back

Advice you didn’t ask for: Business

The world at small

Dear Lithuanian Diary

A “Cruel Summer”