Leonard Pitts Jr. is a syndicated columnist for The Miami Herald. He’s written for several other publications such as Essence and Reader’s Digest. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in both 1992 and 2004. He won a Pulitzer for commentary in 2004.A few of his articles are published in the 2008-2009 Best Newspaper Writing book that my Writing for Publication class used as a textbook. As an African-American writer, he portrays the differences between his community and others.
His articles are usually written using much repetition. This literary element is prominent in his article “‘Murder is the greatest injustice of all,’” where Pitts calls attention to the statistics of African-American killings. “And this is how we die,” is used as a transitional phrase, one that introduces more information to add to the whole picture of his article.
However, one of my favorite columns written by Pitts is entitled “I know He’s out there—somewhere,” which asks the essential question of existence and human relation to God. I found this article interesting the first time I read it, and though I understood the basic concept and idea, I couldn’t exactly interpret all of the distinct aspects.
Though he doesn’t use his typical and effective repetition, he uses a lot of dialogue as well as what I interpreted as symbols. He begins by describing a pool and “God...floating on His back.” After much dialogue from his part, Pitts seems to become overwhelmed from God’s silence. He begins to yell and exclaim that people no longer believe in God because he continually remains silent.
His faith is shaken throughout the article as he speaks to God who continues to float in the pool. As his religious dilemma unfolds, an atheistic perspective dawns on him. “‘When you see nothing, when you feel nothing, isn’t it logical to conclude it’s because there is nothing.’”
Then, in a split second, he realizes God left him, only to reappear outside of the pool “drying himself with a towel.” God’s only dialogue referred to a television program previously mentioned in the article before going inside the house. Immediately after, “It started to rain.”
The symbol I primarily recognized in the article was the water. Water in this article could represent doubt. As God soaked in the pool, more did Pitts find it hard to believe in God. Pitts’ sigh of relief to finally see God emerge from the pool and dry the water—doubt—from his body implies the human need to physically witness God to have faith. As God abandons Pitts, it begins to rain, indicating that Pitts once again began to doubt his faith.
This article is a perfect example of the daily struggle that we have to overcome doubt. Anything that disrupts it, such as rain, signifies the abandonment of God. We soak in doubt and instead of drying ourselves off with God’s towel, we allow God to leave. We forget to follow him “into the house."
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