Editorial: In praise of ‘localism’
August 31, 2018 on Editorials, Opinion
About a year ago, the Maine Seacoast Mission honored this newspaper, its publisher Alan Baker and its founding editor Earl Brechlin with the organization’s Sunbeam Award.
Mission director Scott Planting noted that the paper, like the Mission, works to cultivate this localist energy.
“In this difficult time of failed public expectations, when thoughtful people wonder where to look for hope, I keep returning in my own mind to the thought of the renewal of rural communities,” Planting said, quoting Wendell Berry.
“But to be authentic, a true encouragement and a true beginning, this would have to be a revival accomplished mainly by the community itself. It would have to be done not from the outside by the instruction of visiting experts, but from the inside by the ancient rule of neighborliness, by the love of precious things, and by the wish to be at home.”