The Pine Needle Magazine is calling for work that interacts with the theme of trust.
Trust feels like a rare commodity after the election season and amidst debates on how to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet our community is completely dependent on trust even now. Writer and philosopher James K.A. Smith has observed how crucial and fragile trust is:
Sometimes I have jarring daydreams in which the layers of civilization and decorum are peeled back and I realize how tenuous the most mundane activities really are. I’ll be driving down a street and realize that, at every single intersection, I’m trusting fellow drivers to obey those stop signs. Every time we put our kids on the school bus, we are trusting the bus driver to protect them. When we sign a lease or a mortgage, we’re trusting the landlord or the bank to keep up their end of the bargain. We trust those little scanners at the supermarket are tallying the correct price. We trust the school board actually cares about our children’s education and we trust the police to be custodians of the peace and we trust our neighbours to keep an eye on the kids.
Until we don’t. And then you start to realize that what we sometimes wistfully call “civilization” is a massive edifice that rests on the tenuous, fragile web of trust—a web that is remarkably strong but also vulnerable.
We would like to hear your thoughts on this theme of trust. We are interested in essays, stories, poetry, flash fiction (learn more about flash fiction here), photography, painting, podcasts–anything that we can share here online.
Submit your work or ask questions by emailing Mr. Sheehy at Geoffrey.Sheehy@k12.sd.us.
Pine Needle Magazine 