Your “Note” in Issue 78 is beautiful. I appreciate your heartfulness. Perhaps the hardest test in these times is one of unity. We strive to separate ourselves with labels and opinions. We share a community, the global village, with those of differing opinions. The demons of our ideological dreams live next door and shop beside us in the supermarket. Those closed-minded materialists we fuss about pray for us every evening. Those tight-fisted industrialists give us a ride when we are hitching. That heartless hedonist gives us a marvelous job reference.
I am just beginning to learn that when I find it hard to deal with others it is because I am having trouble dealing with my “selves.”
I was sitting in the Graduate Theological Library in U.C. Berkeley doing Italian verbs when your publication caught my eye. The subjunctive had to be put away for awhile while I thumbed through. I was really pleased with the excerpts from one of Hugh Prather’s works for he has often been my salvation when I’m feeling down or just out of sorts. Also, some of the poetry at the back seemed to be giving me encouragement in doing exactly what I please instead of what academia, society, and my peers think I should do. Anyway spontaneity seized the day and I’m sending for a half-year subscription plus two dollars donation.
Thanks for making my day.
I have an idea that might widen your subscription audience. Why don’t you suggest that your long-time subscribers give away their past issues? I had a big pile collecting dust in a box, so I gave them to a friend and told him to spread them around when he finished with them. Giving them to a library might be even better. People have got to know your magazine exists in order to subscribe. Anyway, it doesn’t cost anything to do. There must be vast numbers of back issues out there just lying around, out of circulation before their time.