HARRISONBURG, Va. (Mennonite Mission Network) — Since October 1987, Melodie Davis’s “Another Way” column has offered readers glimpses from the narrow road and perspectives on life and events.
The column, celebrating its 20th anniversary, currently appears in 12 media outlets across the United States and also online at Third Way Café. Davis said she approaches her writing as an outlet for an Anabaptist, third-way voice in both religious and secular media as well as an outlet for her own personal thoughts.
“If we are to integrate faith into all of life, this is the way I process life,” Davis said. “It makes me keep trying to push the edges (and) keeps me reading and enquiring and exploring.”
Another Way replaced a weekly column that had been a spin-off of the script of the "Your Time" radio program in the 1980s. When the program stopped running, Davis, who had been ghost-writing some of the program’s scripts, picked up the newspaper feature. Her first column was a tribute to a murdered judge she had worked for when she was a teen. She used her personal connection to the high-profile case to plead for a reasoned and rational approach to his killers’ punishment, arguing against the death penalty.
Her columns since then have been professional and personal, humorous and holy. Another Way has included devotionals, marital (and parental) advice and confessions. She has written about her work with documentaries on mental illness, suicide, poverty housing, hunger, and forgiveness.
