Why subscribe?

Most likely, you shouldn’t. It would be a terrible waste of your time. If I had five minutes of your time which I could recklessly spend (this is what a newsletter author does), I would tell you to spend it on getting up five minutes earlier to “do nothing” with God, in silent mental prayer, before your household is making noise. This would be an excellent waste of time. God will not be outdone in generosity (write down that sentence in case you are surprised later. It is the explanation for whatever will have happened.)

If you are already doing that, I would tell you to make it ten minutes.

If it is already a half-hour, which perhaps you have arrived at by degrees, my last piece of advice would be to look for a spiritual director (like a buy and hold index investor, I cannot predict the market, so I don’t know specifically why or when you may want one. But they take a while to find, so I would be remiss in not suggesting it up front.)

“Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.” - Sure, if I haven’t talked you out of it, which I think by now I probably have.

“Stay up-to-date”

Up-to-date is a relative term since I do not post about current events. (I am having a good time deconstructing the boilerplate.)

“You won’t have to worry about missing anything.” - This is not something you should be worrying about in the first place. If I miss seeing something, perhaps I should just assume that God did not think it would be helpful for me to have seen it then.

“Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.” - Probably convenient, if a person is absolutely determined to read it. But maybe have your email provider file it automatically into a folder, for looking at later, on a rainy day. Remove the false sense of urgency. You do not have to read recreational email as it arrives.

“Join the crew”

“Be part of a community of people who share your interests.” - This sounds halfway reasonable to me, if only I had not earnestly tried to drive them all away; as things stand, I’m not confident that you can expect any such thing to exist here. If it does exist, allow me to predict that it will be in some ways a disappointment to you; we desire, so greatly, to be understood by others; this is a human need, and it is a need that is not material, and so I think that we will always find it imperfectly-met except in God. We are not saved alone, however; we exist in community and ought to encourage one another along the way, so I suppose it is fine as long as we do not forget where we are going.

“To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.”