The Call of the Mild

I’m excited to introduce our new logo, which was lovingly created and designed by my husband’s HI (Human Intelligence). This is a true family passion project, and even our daughter is working on some artwork to reflect the message we want to deliver through this Substack community. We’re dreaming up all kinds of ways to expand and offer more writing, media, and bookish goods to further the mission.

When I started summer vacation at the end of May, I wrote about the summer plans for this Substack and really focused on consistently posting and engaging with all of you. I had the great privilege of dedicating hours every week to research, writing, editing, commenting, and reading. It’s been such a joy.

In that time, I hoped I’d see continued growth and interest expressed in the work I was doing, but I was totally unprepared for the outpouring of beautiful comments, the relationships formed, and the growth of this community. When I wrote my summer plans article on May 27th, Books May Save Us had 534 subscribers; at this moment, there are 2,134 subscribers. Followers have also grown by leaps and bounds.

What this leads me to feel is immense gratitude, and what it leads me to think is that many other people feel as I do about the state of our world and what can be done to make it better. At least, that’s what I’m betting on.

There are many famous scenes in the movie Jerry Maguire. The “Show me the money” and “You complete me” moments have been cemented in many of our memories. But the scene that I often think of is the one where Jerry writes a mission statement about how he thinks that his industry could be better, and he loses everything in the fallout. As he’s leaving his lucrative and successful business to start his own business without any real clue of how he’ll succeed, he looks around his gigantic office building at all of his colleagues and asks, “Who’s coming with me?” He tries to make it sound good, exciting, and meaningful, and you can see that he really thinks people will join him, but there’s just a terrible silence. Until finally one person raises their hand and says she’ll join whatever it is that he’s building. She’s read his mission statement, and she’s a believer. She’s scared, but she grabs her stuff and walks into this new venture.

The theologian Frederick Buechner famously wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” My deep gladness is books, and I believe that they are what the world profoundly needs.

I feel like this Substack is my calling and vocational mission statement. Yes, it’s a fan page for books, and hopefully it’s funny, interesting, thought-provoking, and encouraging for those of us who are the true believers that books make the world a better place. But, as a teacher, a mom, a believer, and a citizen who was the nerd with posters of historical figures on her bedroom walls instead of rock stars, I hope that this is really a call to action. I’m so tired of being told that the world is broken, people have lost faith, hope is gone, and the bad guys won. It’s not great right now, but this is what nerds have been preparing our whole lives for.

My mom used to have a button that said, “The meek are getting ready.” It is in reference to the promise Jesus makes that the meek shall inherit the Earth. It’s easy to underestimate the meek, like it’s easy to dismiss book lovers as quiet and out-of-touch nerds, but I think that book, history, theater, arts, story, and language nerds are especially trained for such a time as this. We may seem small and quiet, but we have great wisdom and help to offer. We have been reading not just for the fun of it, but for the sake of our world that is mired in AI slop, doom scrolling, brain rot, post-literacy, and mental health crises.

This movement is about offering “WHY” we should read right now, “WHAT” we can do to share the love of reading, and “HOW” we can actually read when we are being bombarded with technology and noise. I am committed to continuing to write weekly articles and daily notes that are free for everyone to read, and to keep working on other projects that I am excited to share with all of you soon.

The reality is that I start teaching full-time again in about three weeks. With that come emails, lesson plans, meetings, and grading papers in much of my free time. I’m also primarily committed to my family and their well-being. And yet, my family is so excited about this mission, and they want me to keep going. So, that’s what we’re going to do. And I can’t thank you all enough for being a part of this movement with me. There are so many absolutely brilliant, kind, and impressive writers here, and I feel like we are all in this together, truly. You all inspire me to keep writing and reading!

The free subscribers and followers are what make me believe this is a calling worth pursuing in this way and on this platform, and I could not be more grateful for each one of you.

Now, I have something to ask all of you. It’s my Jerry Maguire moment. “Who’s coming with me?” If you believe that this work is important and you want to support me in getting the word out to as many people as possible, would you please consider becoming a paid subscriber today?

The economy is brutal right now, and the job market is awful, and prices are high, and this is a huge ask. As of today, I’ve set the monthly subscription as low as Substack will let me. $5 per month. That’s less than my precious Iced Chai with Oatmilk at Starbucks, which I now try to make at home because, did I mention, prices are brutal? Another option is a $50 annual subscription. And if you’re slightly more daring, there is a founder option. If you already have a subscription at a higher rate, I will be working to get your subscription adjusted to the new rate.

I’m not promising anything extra right now, and I want to keep everything I have right now free for everyone, but there will be additional perks coming. My mom is a faithful NPR listener, and I know that a tote bag goes far in exciting people to give. But right now, I’m just asking for support for what I’m doing now and what I plan to do. I’m so grateful that I can even ask this because I know how much this mission means to all of you. And, I hope you know that you all mean so much to me. Thank you!