Issue 120 | Correspondence | The Sun Magazine

Correspondence

As good friend to THE SUN magazine, I feel the need to object to the publication of the “Bartholomew” writings. Is the magazine so short of publishable material that it must publish the lectures of this very glib, very smug ghost? Or does the editor believe that we can actually learn something by reading the words of one who is in such marvelous communication with angels? Frankly, I can’t pretend to be untroubled when any writer finds himself singled out to transmit to the rest of us some piece of holy information; particularly when the voice of truth renders itself so comfortably in the language of modern psychology. Anyway, it strikes me as a questionable idea to publish spiritual transmissions in a magazine where the rest of us are simply arguing for the truth, or at least for those poor little truths which men and women mostly have to make do with.

Of course THE SUN will publish what it wants to publish, but there’s no harm in reminding you that there are readers out there — and not just the much feared academic with his unenchanted rational mind — who will always regard the publication of “Bartholomew” and his rhetoric of omniscience as a slur upon THE SUN’s intellectual dignity.

John Rosenthal Chapel Hill, North Carolina

After I read David Searls’ letter to THE SUN [Issue 118], I started thinking about why I pledged $20 a month as a Friend of THE SUN. It’s not because you write a good appeal (which you do very well). It really is very selfish. I want this magazine to live because I don’t want to lose it.

I am going to be forty in December. I come from a stable, upper-middle class family. I live well, love beauty and am just at the stage of reconciling my desire to live well and yet not make things or people my “cake.” I am my “cake” and all the rest is frosting. I see and believe in things and define my perceptions in a different way from my family, most of my friends and all of my past relationships.

What happened when I read THE SUN was that I found a connection to people who are like me at least in the questions that they ask, the feelings that they are willing to express and the values that they hold. Your magazine has a great look — no white robe yoga toga required. I don’t have to be a jogger, eat granola, experiment with drugs, belong to EST. All I have to do is pick it up and learn. Laugh. Cry. Share with friends. Some people take lovers. I take THE SUN. I love that you ask readers to share their thoughts. What other magazine asks the readers for their opinions except in letters to the editor? What other magazine is so friendly, open and yet not dogmatic?

When I was fourteen, my seventeen-year-old brother went every Friday night to the home of a classmate where her parents held open house for any of their daughter’s friends to come and talk about moral issues, questions, likes, dislikes. Anything. Once my brother condescended to take me. I was speechless. Adults asking kids their opinion? Girls talking to boys like people? Boys looking at your face and not your chest? A place to think what you wanted with no right or wrong? I can close my eyes and recreate that experience with no trouble. It was a peak experience for me. And until THE SUN, I never found that feeling again.

Linda Cole Santa Barbara, California
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