Provan 
Not: Go with the flow. But: Go with the vapor. You can’t hold what you’ve got anyway, so beat the vapor to the punch and let it go before it slips away. As Augustine knew, life one of those goods that can be possessed only when we are dispossessed.
Solomon implies the world is built to require us to live by faith; he also implies that the world is constructed to encourage us to live by gift, self-gift. Chesterton knew this: Whoever clings to life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life shall find it, Chesterton said, is not some bit of paradoxical mysticism, but purest common sense. It’s the way the world works.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
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