Years ago, when I was a poor, single-mother, schoolteacher, one of my friends, an art teacher at the same school, taught me something I’ve never forgotten. You can take a cheap poster, or photograph, or sketch and, if you put it in a really good frame, it will look great on your walls. In the same way, you can take a basic “event notification” story and frame it in a way that advances your objectives. Framing matters, not only in home decor, but when we have a message that we want to get out to the world.
Here’s a report of a Pagan Pride event from the Fresno Bee:
Pagan Pride Day makes a comeback
The area’s pagan community will come together for Central Valley Pagan Pride Day to promote alternative and nontraditional spiritual traditions from Bakersfield to Stockton. Central Valley Pagan Pride Day will be from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. next Saturday at Woodward Park’s Sunset View Shelter.
Organizers are calling the event a renaissance of sorts. The event was held for a few years, beginning in 2005, before being discontinued.
This year’s event is presented by Central Valley Pagan Pride, which seeks to educate the community about its many beliefs and traditions and to ensure that all people are represented and have a voice in the community.
The event will feature workshops, vendors, lecturers, entertainment, food and a kids area. Presenters include Crystal Blanton, author of “Bridging the Gap: Working Within the Dynamics of Pagan Groups and Society.”
The entrance fee for cars to enter Woodward Park is $5. Details: valleypagan.com.
Notice how the focus is on what the event will include, what the planners’ objective is (“to educate the community about [the Pagan groups’] many beliefs and traditions and to ensure that all people are represented and have a voice in the community”), and a mention that the event is being restarted after a few years’ absence. Notice what’s missing: any defensive discussion about what Pagans don’t do or how Pagans are misunderstood. “Educating the community” may, in fact, be designed to help any people who do have misconceptions to get over them, but it’s a positive way to present the issue and it doesn’t reinforce a negative frame by invoking it.
More like this, please. (Of course, “Pagan” should be capitalized. It’s an umbrella term for a group of religions, just as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. Those terms are capitalized, so “Pagan” should be, as well. But that’s likely the paper’s fault, not the fault of the Pagan Pride Day sponsors.)
Picture found here.
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Great article. I also appreciate the earlier article you wrote about framing. I think we can apply what you are teaching us here to anything we have to share.
Thank you for your thoughtful and educational articles.
-Alaurie
I go for all lower case in my own eclectic way because otherwise I would find myself feeling I should capitalising Mundane and Earth and Moon, Menstrual, Holy, Body, Blood, Starlight etc and that leads one down the lane of 18th-century orthography.
But when submitt9ng for publication or checking proofs, capitals work better to get the point across.
Bravo! Nice, crisp and positive!
… and yes indeed … Pagan should be capitalized …
..would be interesting to hear more about Ms. Blanton’s work ….