By Mark Azzara
Dear Friend,
I am getting anxious, wondering if my email Christmas gift will arrive as expected.
Last year about this time I received an email offer from Conde Nast Publications sent via The New Yorker: “Stay Relevant With Vanity Fair for Just $1 a Month.”
Uh … Stay relevant? Wow, who knew? To be honest, I didn’t know my relevance was about to expire. You tell me. Has it? Maybe I should send them a thank-you note for the heads-up.
Even more shocking, I had to ask myself: Is that all it costs to be relevant?
But perhaps most shocking, I didn’t know that Vanity Fair had become the sole arbiter of who and what is relevant. I thought that was God’s job. But if it is Vanity Fair’s job, I guess I should expect another offer this year that I cannot refuse (even though I did last year).
It was too late then to comment via this letter and, frankly, I was too dumbfounded to truly know what to say. But if the egomaniacs at Conde Nast contact you with a similar offer, let me reassure you – at no cost whatsoever – that you are relevant, regardless of your education, race, gender, age, health, income or any other factor. And that you will remain so because God declares it.
I write this letter every week precisely because you are relevant – to me, to many others, and most especially to God. That reminder is the best gift I can possibly offer you because it is the message and the gift of Christmas.
All God’s blessings – Mark
