Notes from readers

I have received many messages wishing me well and thanking me for my work. Most of them I have not posted publicly, though I’m often undecided about whether I should post them or not. Here are a couple that I would like to post:

Daniel O.writes:

Today, I read on The Orthosphere and The Thinking Housewife that your medical condition has worsened significantly. I am saddened and even shocked to hear so, although it has always been within the range of possibilities.

I am sending you this e-mail, because no other contemporary thinker has been as instrumental to the development of my thought as you. In other words, to me, you are an intellectual hero. I just wanted to say this now while it is still possible—but I really hope that I am being too rash in saying so.

It goes without saying that you are in my prayers.

LA replies:

Thank you.

Philip M. writes from England:

I would like to add my voice to those who have expressed their concern for your recent health problems. I have found myself moved by the messages of support you have received, because I can vouch for the sentiment expressed by many of your commenter of the way in which you, a man we have never met, have come to be a presence in our lives and thinking in a way that is for me, unique. I have been trying to write something that would adequately express the phenomenon of VFR, of the melding of man and message and the way they are so often in my thoughts—but on this and other subjects that I wish to write about the solidity of the ideas in my head seem to undergo a frustrating dissipation the moment I try to get them down on the page, which has had me writing and rejecting everything I attempt to write to you. So for the time being you will just have to take my word for it that your health is very much in my thoughts, for reasons that I hope I will be able to one day express.

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Karl D. writes:

I too wanted to relate to you my sorrow that your health has taken a turn for the worse. At the same time I would like to thank and state my admiration for that wonderful brain of yours. You have helped tremendously in guiding and honing my outlook and philosophy of the world at large as well as acting as my sometimes English teacher. ; ) Since I have been a faceless correspondent of yours for several years now I figured I would put a face with the name. Please find attached a photo of myself taken on Christmas of 2011. I was dressed a little Victorian that day, thus the burgundy cravat. I too will be joining in the prayer for you this Sunday. And to think I found you due to your argument and break with Conservative Swede. Proof that even negative things can bring about the positive.

Ian M. writes:

I’m very sorry to hear of your worsening condition. I’d like to echo others in saying that you have been a profound influence on my thought. I also feel very fortunate to have met you several times, and of course, I hope many more times to come!

You are in my prayers, and I will be participating in the massed intercessory prayer in your behalf.

Matthew H. writes:

I continue to pray for you and will do so again on the 13th, which happens to be my birthday. I would be very pleased if all I received was your clean bill of health.

You should know that you have had a significant and lasting good influence on my life. You may recall that some of my first exchanges with you, back around 2005, involved a poster of raging Muslims with various taglines, some of which, as you pointed, out were unacceptably vulgar. To my shame this was something to which I was then apparently oblivious. Since that rebuke I have ceased using such language entirely. Thank you.

As Proverbs 27:6 says: Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

This is, of course, in addition to all the great work you do in exposing, interrogating, and deconstructing the enemies of God and of all that is good and decent. You are a master at doing to them what they have been doing to us all these many years. But, whereas their deconstruction is purely destructive, your deconstruction of the de-constructors is itself a constructive act.

For the sake of our glorious cause I pray that the Lord will grant you many vigorous years to come. Lord, how we need more intelligence and fighting spirit!

Above all, may you rest in the assurance of His providential care.

Kenyon H. writes:

Larry, I have been praying for your health for a while. Sunday, our entire class (300 strong) will pray for you. One thing you might do is to stop it with those five syllable words. It causes us lesser mortal to do much dictionary diving. It is just my left handed way of saying that you are an intellectual giant among your peers and I thank God for your gift.

Get well soon, Larry so that we can continue the fight against the forces of evil.

James N. writes:

My whole family is praying for you. We will gladly participate in the worldwide prayer this Sunday.

I hope you know how much VFR has meant to me since I discovered it it 2005. The scope of your work is truly unique, in its ability to tie together the diverse strands that appear to be unravelling all around us into a comprehensive understanding of what we have been calling “liberalism.”

You have helped my wife and me develop and then try to impart a deep vision to our five daughters, especially the older ones. I am sure there are hundreds if not thousands of young people affected, directly or indirectly, by your work.

I have always tried to raise my children to be people who will know, remember, and carry forward to generations not yet born an understanding of what it means to be human, what it means to be a member of our civilization, what is right and what is wrong. You have helped to shape and refine this ambition like no one else, and I believe that they, and my grandchildren and future great-grandchildren, would be proud to know of your work and of my admiration for it.

Thank you.

LA writes:

I’ve been unable to reply individually to the many kind messages I’ve received, whether they have been posted or not. My profound thanks to everyone who has written.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 09, 2013 07:15 AM | Send