Monday, March 11, 2024

It is the 11th of March 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Oh, hey… it’s you again, look at us, who would have thought…. A happy Monday wherever and whenever you are- today on the mailbag, we are doing a little behind the scenes with the question.

The question comes from Zack in Greensboro North Carolina- home to Rick Dee’s who gave us 1976’s Disco Duck and its follow up Dis-Gorilla. Also home to Danny Manning, my favorite Clipper of all time.

I’m going to paraphrase his question because it's a common one: how do you make the show? What are some of the resources you use, etc…? Let’s go behind the scenes. I have few actual skills, zero athletic ability, and I can’t dance, but I can read. I figure a baseline for me is 50-60 pages an hour, faster if it’s familiar or easy, and maybe slower if I’m taking notes. So, first, I have a collection of, currently, 11 tabs that I open that take me to “on this day” type sites from Wikipedia to Britannica. Also, while I read, if something sticks out to me, I get a date associated with it and make a note of it for later. I plan about a week in advance and collect the people, events, etc… I decide which are the hardest and plan those first. I have a collection of standard histories of the church, all digital, that I plug the names/events into, and then I ask myself, “Why does this matter?” “What might be beneficial about this, and how could I frame it to be interesting?”. I’ll check Amazon and see if there is a recent monograph, and I’ll check JSTOR (now easily available even for noncollege students) for recent articles. I go to their notes and bibliography. Who are they using? Are there any pertinent debates over how this person/event/idea has been understood? Using at least two sources, I outline the person's life, or word bubble, and the events and ideas associated with it. I ask questions, “What might I need to understand to “get this?” And then I read- archive.org has so many free digitized books, and my library, after two decades of doing this, is pretty big. I then get some of you in mind, some specifically (of you’ve corresponded with me or know me)- “How might this hit them?” “Am I putting the best possible construction on this?” I’ve got Lutheran and Catholic and Charismatic and Conservative and progressive listeners. I want to make sure I don’t needle any one unnecessarily. Then I think of the general listener if they asked me, “In a few minutes, could you tell me about X?” And so I start a conversation in my head and type out what I’d say- I type very fast as well, which is helpful.

After I re-read my script a second time with a view towards coming up with something made up about Gillespie and a pun or something, I wrote the ending into my template. I certainly wonder if and how this topic relates at all to Disney’s Robin Hood. I shoot for a word length of 1000 words for the weekday and 4,000 or so for the weekend. I use Vanderbilt’s online lectionary with links to biblereference.com for the reading. Sometimes, for the Psalms, I go online for the Scottish Metrical Psalter because I dig that a lot.  

I read it into my fancy mic through my Rode board into Logic Pro X, save the rough audio, and drop it and the script in Dropbox for Gillespie, who does the audio production and posts the rough transcript at 1517.org.

A few notes for someone who wants to do their own research- start with questions! “What might I need to know about to understand this?” Start at 30,000 feet and look at general books on the topic. Don’t be afraid of Wikipedia, but never let it be your lone source- over the years, they have gotten really good at requiring footnotes and links to sources. I take notes in my notes app because it’s searchable, and I can go back and look at things I’ve written before. My notes app is the most valuable thing to my professional life. And, just as an encouragement because it took me some time to learn this, ask, “Why do I want to know?” “What will I do with this?” “What might I learn that might give me insight into my life?” And if I’m doing anything that is making me unreasonably upset or I find I’m doing it to “prove something to someone,” I let it go and will allow myself back in when my attitude is better. So… I guess it’s time to re-read this answer and think of something clever for the ending… thanks for the question, Zack in Greensboro, and others who have asked similar questions over the years. Oh, also, I need music in my ears and usually sports on mute on my iPad while I do it all, or I get distracted.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary from Hebrews 3:

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,”bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 11th of March 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man surely happy I learned to edit out my flubs so he can work with a clean read through- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who is honestly thankful for all of you and that I get to do such a strange thing every day- I’m Dan van Voorhis. 

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.