this from the Touchstone blog. It can be found on the left of the blog (A Wholly Unauthorized Appeal)
but is posted here. A fine magazine and a fine blog. Well worth your time and subscribtion.
February 06, 2008
Today, in a rush of inspiration, this letter soliciting contributions to Touchstone came to me. I assure you, dear readers, it has NOT approved by senior management, but issued, I am sure, from a higher source, by the light of two things I encountered today.
The first was a solicitation from a school I once attended, so dripping with piety that when I was through with it I was left with the unmistakable impression that this kind of stuff, in the end, is an elaborate exercise in taking the Lord’s name in vain. It made me want to write a letter for Touchstone that didn’t make any claims whatever to being a direct tool of the Holy Spirit, indispensable for the work of God in this generation. Nope. We’re not. He can do perfectly well without us. He did just fine before we were here, and he will continue to do just fine when we’re gone. But if we’re going to stick around, we need a steady supply of money--lots of it. (Many thanks to you who contribute!)
The other inspiration came from a visit to a website that ranked charities, giving them higher or lower grades corresponding to the ranking organization’s criteria for the use of donated funds. Among the interesting figures for some of the Christian groups were the salaries given to their founders and officers. Clearly a number of these are robust advocates of the biblical principle that one should not muzzle the ox that grinds the corn.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I don’t begrudge my fellow non-profiteers the fruits of their no doubt prodigious labors in the Lord’s vineyard. My brief time in perusing this site, however, brought me under strong, I could almost say, religious, conviction, that if Touchstone really wants to play with the big guys, we need to be in the business not only of sending people long letters with lots of underlining (along with the machine-produced signature of some important person that looks like he really wrote it) but of of saving somebody. Even briefer reflection on the lives of my fellow senior editors brought me to the conclusion that they in particular need to be rescued and set on the path to Better Things.
With a generous contribution, you can save a Touchstone editor from numerous kinds of degradation. I am thinking in particular of:
--THE FILTHY HABIT OF SMOKING CHEAP CIGARS
--THE UNSPEAKABLE VICE OF DRINKING BLENDED WHISKY
--OR UNNAMABLE THINGS LABELED MISE EN BOUTEILLE EN KALAMAZOO
--LIVING IN MERELY ADEQUATE HOUSING
--DRIVING VEHICLES THAT ARE POOR TESTIMONIES TO DIVINE BENEFICENCE
And I hate very much to say this, but even though all my fellow senior editors live with handsome women they call their wives, and by whom they have children, I am the only one whose marriage papers I have actually seen. The praise they give these women when out of their company frankly makes me wonder if they are really married to them--but a generous contribution will no doubt help them all “do the right thing” by their long-suffering consorts. Making Touchstone rich might also give my own wife, legal though I know her to be, an incentive to reform her sinful attitude toward my sense of humor.
So dig deep, my friends, and cast your bread upon the waters, to mix metaphors--but piously--remembering that the First Part of Touchstone is “touch.”
Posted by S. M. Hutchens at 11:03 PM Permalink
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