I have a great appreciation for artists; some of my best connections are with people who are, to their core, amazing creatives. But my need for transparency demands my honest confession: I love having artists as friends and appreciate their unique personhood, but I feel like a Baptist pastor at a wine tasting party when exposed to their genius productions. My savvy for art – in its various forms – is nearly non-existent. I was raised in an environment that was walled-off from anything cultured. Among the talented, the option is often “oils” or “watercolor;” for me, it’s always been about words…

My choice of media – written or spoken messaging – is a tougher exercise these days. America has no “official” language, but English has usually been the deferential means of communication. But buckle your belt, bucko: “English” alone is an inadequate qualifier for the word selections we require.

The emergence of dialects within American culture is creating a fracturing effect on our effort to convey information across generations. Boomers, Busters, Millennials and Gen-Zs are often at an impasse as we seek to know and be known beyond our own comfortable age/stage cohorts.

Proof: I fancy myself an artist using a keyboard instead of a brush, but if I use words/phrases like hacked-off, it’s a gas, flip your wig, groovy, moo juice, chrome dome, or scratch, I risk limiting my listening audience to people born before 1964. Later-comers are likely to miss my point entirely…

For adults alive before the Internet, information was not exchanged on screens. Newspapers were the medium-of-exchange for updates on the world beyond one’s driveway. My ritual included getting the morning paper in hand and getting informed before I had my first “live” encounter every day.

From that era, terms like “above the fold” and “bury the lead” were not obscure concepts. Above the Fold meant that the story warranted primary status in a newspaper; when folded on a news stand, the headline was likely to make the sale as the customer considered trading a dime for the story.

To “Bury the Lead” meant that the opening paragraph had not adequately compressed the most important aspect of the story that followed. To meander from the reader’s first minute in the story to the writer’s bottom line – at the end of the column – was to “bury the lead.” For a journalist, that was not an editor’s compliment; rather, it was a correction that warranted attention. Match a headline with the first paragraph; then use the rest of the word-count to fill in the details.

It’s been true for millennia; the reality of ongoing spiritual warfare is proof of the underlying existence of an Almighty Creator and a wicked but resourceful Enemy. The Scriptures assign a variety of titles to the leader of the dark side; among them is “the God of this World.” He – originally Lucifer, later rebranded as the fallen prince of angels Satan – knows the Truth – and the Bible and its truths – better than any human who has ever lived. How would he attempt to deceive and destruct the human race who had fallen under his evil influence?

His strategies have been exercised, tested and refined over a thousand generations. Two are notable: keep the Truth from being placed where it belongs, which is Above the Fold. And, when people begin searching the Scriptures to find the Answer, Bury the Lead. 

In the newspaper business, they’ve always had a font called “Second Coming.” It’s reserved for mega-events that demand appropriate emphasis, above the fold. Until Jesus returns, that font belongs Above the Fold announcing his First Coming, which is captured in the Gospel of Salvation.

Religion loses its way when the “system” Buries the Lead, putting the human works – the regulations and protocols advanced by any/all religious system – in the opening paragraph, and dropping the promise/prophecy of God’s ultimate solution into the lost-pages of antiquity and losing the essence of what God did – beyond Creation and Eden – to redeem our lost race to Himself.

What’s on Page 1/Above the Fold for you? And… as you interact with people, are you Burying the Lead or proclaiming the most important message ever delivered from Heaven to humans?

Bob Shank