Awed and humbled

. . . to see that Precipice is making a difference

I awoke this morning to an email notification that was nothing short of life-changing. It alerted me that a Precipice subscriber had pledged $80 a year.

I’m not sure how to convey what this means to me.

I’ve been a professional writer for 29 years. I’ll confess, though, that nothing provided an outlet for the kind of writing I really wanted to do until I started this site. It’s mostly been somewhat narrowly focused work in arts and business journalism, features on interesting places, and profiles of interesting people. To be sure, I’ve derived a great deal of satisfaction from it. I have enjoyed cultivating the sense of how to discern the arc of an interview, how to draw out what is unique about a given assignment, even if at first glance it seems mundane.

But I had much to say about the sociocultural landscape that, from my observation, no one else was quite saying. I did my best to articulate what that was on the About page.

It’s been gratifying indeed to watch the number of subscribers steadily grow. I’m speaking to someone, it said to me. Other folks are interested in how the degradation of Western civilization might be approached with clarity and fealty to the West’s institutions, norms, and scientific, artistic and philosophical contributions, yet humbly and with certainty of God’s sovereignty and presence.

My work here came to the attention of the editors at Ordinary Times, to which I’ve been a regular contributor for a little over a year now. My pieces there range from the whimsical to the weighty. It’s offered me the kind of freedom that I’ve been looking for in magazine writing.

Momentum in the direction of what I want to focus on has been gathering.

But asking for the order has never come easy for me. That’s why I was mediocre at any sales job I ever had.

I’ve been pondering what I might do above and beyond the regular content here that might compel folks to pay. I’m still looking at several ideas, one of which, opening posts to the chat function, I initiated in a recent post entitled “The Unifying Theme of the Content Here at Precipice.”

I’d really like to foster the sense of community here. Ours is not a majority orientation in this world, and I, for one, am thrilled when I see evidence of connection with the like-minded.

And I invite you to join the subscriber whose move came to my attention this morning. At this point in my life, writing is my entire income. (I’ll probably resume my adjunct-faculty activity at our local community college this fall, and my jazz ensemble has some gigs lined up later this year.) That folks want to see me prosper at something for which the market is decidedly niche means everything to me.

If you may be inclined to become a paid subscriber, what kind of premium content would you like to see? I’m considering a podcast, as well as maybe some kind of roundtable discussions. You folks are smart. Your ideas about this are welcome.

For now, I just wanted to share this bit of news that did wonders for my sense that I’m doing something here that moves the needle.

You folks are the best. Thanks for reading Precipice.