Making headlines instead of writing them

Some people go through life without ever once being the subject of a newspaper story. Or, since this is the 21st century, the subject of a story on a Web site.

Either way, those people are lucky. Even when you know -- even trust -- the person writing about you, it's just not fun. Objectivity, fairness, all that stuff ... it only goes so far. There's no way a news story can capture a person's reality in 360 degrees. Usually, 180 or so is enough. Or so I tell myself.

My church is going to be torn down. It's an old church, built in 1916. It is, in the eyes of some, historic. It is also at risk of falling down. Not only from earthquakes (no one will insure it) but from generations of deferred maintenance. The roof. The foundation. The boilers. The crumbling wood that strains against the weight of the massive stained glass windows. You get the idea.

We figured that when people found out that the building might be torn down, they would freak out. And hopefully open wide their checkbooks, and help us save it. But when we held public meetings and congregational meetings last summer, the silence cracked like thunder. I told my friends at the local newspaper, where I used to work more than a year ago. But they didn't start covering the story until recently.

I wasn't too worried about media attention. I knew we'd covered our bases. But I didn't anticipate that they would do things like run a picture of our damaged dome with the damage somehow rendered invisible. The rest of the story was similarly fair and balanced (and I use the Fox phrase advisedly).

There will be another story tomorrow. I may not even look at it. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter to me. The reporter in me heard the quotable quotes, saw the tears, saw the telling details. And the person in me knew that there would be no way that the reporter (a good man, a smart man) would be able to tell my story. I've got that inside.

As with a lot of things in my life, I'm learning about fallibility. Nothing is simple. Nothing is as it appears. My truth isn't even THE truth. It's just mine. No matter what's in the newspaper.