Long ago, I worked in for a newspaper that published a large, large feature story in its style pages about divorce recovery. The package included -- this was at the dawn of the "news you can use" era -- a list of local divorce-recovery groups similar to the ones discussed in the story. This directory included at least two dozen such groups, many offering unique spins on this painful subject. There were feminist divorce-recovery groups and New Age groups. There were groups for those interested in outdoorsy activities that would aid recovery. I seem to remember that there was a group for gays and lesbians recovering from the break-up of straight marriages. There were groups for those struggling with addiction issues, as well as a divorce.
What was missing? Well, for starters, the list did not include the region's largest divorce-recovery groups and networks. For example, there was a major evangelical megachurch that had an large ministry -- 100-plus people at least, at times more than that -- for those struggling to avoid a divorce or to recover from one. There were other churches in various traditions with similar ministries. The newspaper's list included none of the local Catholic ministries linked to divorce recovery.
In other words, the story said it was about divorce recovery. Period. In reality, it was about every imaginable kind of divorce recovery except for those linked to traditional religious faith groups.
I asked the editor who worked on the story how she would feel, after reading the story, if she was the head of that massive megachurch ministry for those struggling with divorce. She thought that over for a second and she said that she would probably assume that the newspaper staff was biased against the church's work. In reality, she had never heard of any of these traditional religious groups and their divorce-related ministries. None of her friends had gone to those groups.
Birds of a feather, you know. The editor didn't know what she didn't know and, well, no one thought that that there was a religion angle to a story about divorce.
This was a classic GetReligion ghost, long before I created that term.
Now, I flashed back to that case study while I was reading the recent Baltimore Sun story that ran under this double-decker headline:
Getting into the groove of meditation
As practice goes more mainstream, experts offer insight into what it is, how to start
Veteran GetReligion readers can probably tell where this is going.
Truth be told, this really isn't a story about "meditation." If it was it would have covered a wide array of meditation techniques and traditions, some religious, some (in this day and age) semi-religious and some completely secular.
Instead, the folks at the newspaper that lands in my front yard had a very specific form of meditation in mind in this story when planning this story and all other forms were omitted, for one reason or another.
So the "Jesus Prayer" doesn't count.
Ditto for ancient Jewish forms of prayer and meditation.
How about meditations linked to the Rosary? No way.
Charismatic or Pentecostal believers standing rapt in ecstasy speaking in what they believe are celestial tongues? Don't go there.
Instead, the producers of this story had a much narrower definition in mind -- almost certainly the definition used by people in the newsroom who are suddenly into "meditation."
Meditation seems to be everywhere lately -- on talk shows, in yoga studios, even on our smartphones. A recent Time magazine cover story announced that we're in the midst of "The Mindful Revolution." Celebrities including hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Ellen DeGeneres promote the benefits of meditation, and how-to classes abound.
The ancient practice is gaining traction in the mainstream and in medicine. Studies show that regular meditators boast the ability to tune out distractions and even lower blood pressure and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.
The. Ancient. Tradition. Singular.
There is only one of them, you see, and it's the one on television and in the self-help stores at the shopping mall.
As it turns out, the members of the Sun team knew that there were some religious overtones in this story.
But there can be confusion about what meditation is meant to be, and how to do it. To a lot of people, meditation looks like sitting around doing nothing. Practitioners say otherwise.
"It's a systematic process of increasing your awareness," says Dr. Madhav Goyal, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of a recent meditation study published by JAMA Internal Medicine. "It's not daydreaming. It's not just relaxing. It's an active process of going deeper into your mind and body and becoming aware of it."
Goyal and his colleagues reviewed 47 clinical trials from the past 50 years and found that "mindfulness meditation" -- often used as a catchall term for Buddhist-based techniques -- appeared to provide as much relief from some anxiety and depression symptoms as antidepressants. Meditation also showed promise in alleviating some pain symptoms as well as stress.
Goyal notes, however, that in Eastern traditions, meditation is not meant to be a treatment for any health condition.
Which Eastern traditions? I assume we are not talking about the ancient Desert Fathers?
Please understand: I think it would have been perfectly valid for the Sun to publish a story on the latest wave of interest in neo-Buddhist meditation techniques, even though that story has been around for several decades now.
That is still a valid story, if there is a new local hook.
My problem is that this was billed as a story on "meditation," not on one form of meditation to the exclusion of all others.
As journalists, the members of the Sun team should have made it clear what this story was about and what it was not about. They should have carefully defined terms and, at the very least, have mentioned other ancient forms of meditation that are practiced by thousands of people in the newspaper's region. They should have mentioned, at the very least, the national studies that found similar benefits to other forms of prayer and meditation.
I mean, that's what they should have done if this is actually a story on "meditation" -- period.
Oh, and that list of suggested "meditation" centers at the end of the story? The "news you can use" section?
Totally predictable.