Today is the last day of The American Conservative‘s fundraising drive. We’re only $1,800 shy of our goal. If you’ve already sent in a tax-deductible donation, believe me, I’m grateful, and so are we all. If you haven’t, would you think seriously about helping us out? 

I was thinking last night about how much I have learned from, and how much I have enjoyed, the threads this week about how people lost their religion, and how people gained their religion. We have such an interesting variety of readers in this blog’s community. As regular readers know, I work hard to keep the conversation in the comments threads civil, even when we are all arguing passionately. It’s important to me that this is a place of real conversation, not the usual yelling and name-calling that drives out all the smart, interesting people on other websites. I know you all appreciate this, too, because you say so. 

I’ve only ever met a handful of you in person, but I feel that I know many of you as well or better than most flesh and blood people in my life. I’ve been reading you for years, and don’t even know the real names of most of you. I really do think that we have a community here, one worth preserving. I’ve enjoyed sharing my love of France with you, and Louisiana, and my discovery of Dante, and Views From Your Table. I like telling you about my church, and hearing about yours. I liked talking about Walker Percy Weekend, and loved meeting you who came to town for it.

Starting next week, and for the first two weeks in October, I will be blogging from Italy, on the Dante trail. And guess what? The famous James C., il maestro of View From Your Table, will be coming down from the UK to Florence for a couple of days so that we can meet and eat together. The VFYT gods have already chosen this restaurant for one of our dinners. (Below, a previous James C. masterpiece from Italy.)

I owe a lot to all of you. My book The Little Way of Ruthie Leming grew out of blogging here, and the amazing and generous way you all responded to the stories of my sister and my hometown. Same thing with my upcoming book How Dante Can Save Your Life. I’m beginning to get invitations to travel to elite forums to talk about the Benedict Option, an idea that I first aired here on this blog, and then in a TAC story. It’s now beginning to be taken seriously among culture leaders. I sense that this may be the next book I do, after the Dante project. And it all comes from this blog and its community.

And yes, I like how so many of you bait me with Prytania-worthy stories sent to my in-box, even if I somehow find the restraint to keep from posting most of them (if I posted even half of the ones I get, I would never post anything else). I love eccentricity, and I am grateful for the Ignatian (Reilly) spirituality that so many of you share with me.

If you value the kind of work I do, and my TAC colleagues do, and if it means something to have this forum in your life, won’t you consider making a donation? Like I said, it’s tax-deductible. When you’re a small a magazine as we are, believe me, every dollar matters. We’re not getting donations from corporations, defense contractors, or the financiers of Conservatism, Inc. We depend on you. We value you, and we hope you value us too.

And I hope in particular you value the genial weirdness of this here blog. It is true that I am responsible for drawing the world’s attention to Cosimanian Orthodoxy. Please don’t hold that against me. On the other hand, if you don’t donate, Uncle Chuckie will put on his psionics helmet and mess with your head!

UPDATE: A great comment from reader Aaron Paolozzi:

Ok, I saw the email last night, and it worried me. I didn’t realize that you guys hadn’t made your goal yet (I’m a regular.) I thought, oh people will see this and it will be no issue. But when I saw you writing this today, I knew it was still something needing fixing.

I figured, hell I’ll be one of the 30 people you need. I literally read this blog and many others every single day (yes I re-read things when there is nothing new out.)

Because you know what Rod, you are very very right , this is an amazing place for thoughtful discussion. This place has helped me on my journey to enlightened political thought, rather than reactionary responses to media stimuli.

Love all of you here at The American Conservative, keep on truckin’!