SALT LAKE CITY — When I think about Notre Dame burning, I think about the people who gathered in the streets to watch, not the flames.
They put aside their weeknight routines to be together and bear witness. They sang “Ave Maria” as strangers joined hands.
I wasn’t in Paris that day, but that scene outside of Notre Dame encapsulates my experience covering religion in 2019. Too often, I had to watch tragedies unfold. Just as often, I found something holy in the midst of the pain.
I spoke to Muslims after a mosque shooting and Methodists as they prepared for a major debate on LGBTQ rights. I met with government officials trying to end religious persecution and pastors who worry their churches will never be full again.
At the end of nearly every conversation, I asked about hope, wondering if peace was still in reach, regardless of the odds. I was told so often that conflict and uncertainty could be redemptive that I started to believe everything would work out OK.
“Despite the fact that the church is so broken, imperfect and fallible, people have a deep and abiding sense ... that there’s a point and a purpose to all of this,” said Ryan Burge, a political science professor and Baptist pastor, to me during a recent phone call.
Tragedy in Christchurch
On the day a shooter killed more than 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, I didn’t feel like working very hard. It was a Friday, and I’d been busy all week. I hoped to do some research for a long-term project and then go play with my dog.
However, some of the local reporters were out sick and being busy with research is a weak justification for refusing a story. I told my editors about my initial plan for the day and was almost immediately asked to set it aside.
Then, and at many other moments over the past year, I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of writing yet another sad story. But I tried to stay focused on my reporting routine, reaching out to members of the local Muslim community, as well as some Christians who wanted to express their support.
Their responses and the whole assignment were not what I expected. Yes, there was anger and sadness, but also gratitude for the surge of support that follows pain.
“These things have an element of encouragement to them,” said Charles Turner, president of the University of Utah’s Muslim Students Association, at the time.
I was thinking something similar this fall as I stood with a pastor and pastor-in-training in the sanctuary of Christ United Methodist Church. They were there to pray over the elements of communion and I was writing about the unique challenges facing small houses of worship.
On some level, I knew what they were up to was pretty discouraging. The Rev. Russell Butler had to pre-bless the bread and grape juice because a small church 40 miles away couldn’t afford a full pastor of its own.
These religious leaders, like hundreds of others across the country, are making sacrifices as interest in organized religion declines. But what I saw on their faces wasn’t stress or resentment. Instead, it was love for the work that they do.
Giving thanks
Burge understands that love better than most, since he preaches each week to a room full of mostly empty pews. He said he gives thanks for his 20 or so parishioners even as he worries about what the future might hold.
“It’s a huge burden for me and a huge joy,” he said.
However, Burge does wonder what life would be like at a bigger church, especially after a different reporter asked him that question directly a few months ago.
“I’m still thinking about that, but I don’t want to be,” he said.
In the same way, I don’t want to begin each workday with a sense of foreboding, but, over the past 12 months, the feeling wouldn’t go away.
Religion-related news broke so often, and it was messy. I spoke to members of warring political factions more than I checked in with my friends.
I covered executive orders, Supreme Court cases, Democratic debates and proposed legislation. I met the United Methodist Church’s first openly lesbian bishop and the Trump administration’s religious freedom czar.
I traveled to Japan with world leaders and Las Vegas with colleagues. I attended a brief worship service in the U.S. Capitol rotunda and a three-day conference on religious persecution around the world.
Reading through a list of the 2019’s top religion stories, I’m sort of shocked that I didn’t just quit one day out of exhaustion and frustration. There was so much violence and rage, so many scandals and losses.
Chris Seiple, an expert on religion and foreign policy, told me recently that, even when things seem hopeless, he doesn’t stop working because there’s still work to do. He has faith that God gave him the gifts he needs to succeed as long as he keeps showing up.
“Sometimes there is no tangible logic to keep showing up, to keep putting your shoulder to the wheel,” Seiple said. “But my definition of success is not some quantitative set of metrics. It’s obedience. Obedience to the commands of my faith.”
What Seiple described is incredibly familiar. While I don’t think of my career as a religious calling, I return to my desk day after day certain it’s the right thing to do.
Unity over isolation
The more I think about my work in 2019, the less I dwell on the sad stories and stress.
Instead, my mind settles on a variety of life-giving moments, times when people chose unity over isolation and fear.
I remember people like Seiple describing breakthroughs in complex negotiations, and the crowd in front of Notre Dame singing an ancient hymn.
I remember standing on a mosque’s gravel driveway in Orem, Utah, so thankful my editors asked me to do the assignment I at first didn’t want to do. It was a privilege to witness an act of horrific violence become a reason for non-Muslims to learn something new.
Months later, the attacks continue to inspire good deeds. In May, President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the church would donate $100,000 to rebuild the targeted mosques. He was in New Zealand to meet with and comfort Muslim leaders and Latter-day Saints.
So many individual assignments, interviews and events in the past year were heartbreaking and headache-inducing. But, when I take a step back, I marvel at what each one taught me.
What strikes me about this emotional evolution is how similar it is to my relationship to church growing up. For a long time, worship services, youth group and community potlucks felt like joyless obligations. But just by showing up, I came to know people who made me a better human being.
When I mentioned this realization to Burge, he brought up a lyric from “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” a song sung in all sorts of churches this time of year.
“There’s this line that goes, ‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight,’” he said. “That’s what church is about, not just the good things, but the bad things, too.”
That’s what religion reporting is about, too. I bear witness to people’s hopes and fears and then write about what I’ve learned.