After 27 years as a journalist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Virginia Gilbert took early retirement in 2004 and went to seminary. Now a certified candidate for the ministry in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), Gilbert divides her time between leading an alternative worship service in south St. Louis, seeking a fulltime call to a church, and supporting various political, labor union and charitable causes through letters to the editor, opinion pieces and blogging. She sporadically maintains blogs at micah6.wordpress.com and altworship.wordpress.com.