I've just spent a brief (oh too brief) time at my beloved Laity Lodge for an Advent retreat. It was delightful and refreshing, and rarely have I seen the canyon look so lovely. But it was also a good reminder of how much the Christian life — and indeed every life — is about learning how to wait. How to wait for what we fear, for what we anticipate, for what we most desire.
As many of you will recall, a few months ago I shifted from my old Buttondown newsletter to a micro.blog-based newsletter. The latter definitely has advantages, the chief among them being that it requires no work on my part: whatever I post on micro.blog, it shows up in the newsletter. But that also means that my newsletters no longer have any particular shape — they're just a collection of links and images. The Buttondown newsletter required me to think about what to give my readers — what particular combination of images, music, quotes, and links might be pleasurable to my readers and satisfying to me. More work, more reward.
It occurs to me that I could also use this venue — my BMAC posts — as a newsletter. But that would reach far fewer readers because it goes out only to supporters. (I have about 400 supporters here; my Buttondown newsletter had around 6000 subscribers.)
So I'm wondering what y'all think: What format/medium/service would work best for you? Please let me know in the comments section below.
Much to do here at the end of the term, after which I will devote most of the break to working on my "biography" of Paradise Lost (for Princeton University Press's Lives of Great Religious Books series). For a long time I was confused about how to shape this book — I was, as Milton might say, "in wand'ring mazes lost" — but I have finally figured it out and hope to have a complete draft by the time school resumes in January. Fingers liturgically crossed!
