Once upon a time, people wrote
letters. I first started writing them when I left home at 18. I wrote about
once every 4-6 weeks to mom and dad about how things were going in school. I was
several states away. They were not long. They were not profound. They just made
me pause for a moment and reflect upon what I was doing at school and my
appreciation for family.
Yes, I actually sat down at a desk,
took up a pen and paper, and wrote a letter.
Today, I might text, tweet, or email.
I might even telephone the person.
At one time, writing letters was an
even art. One might even express profound thoughts in letters. Here is how two people reflect upon letter writing.
"Sending a letter is the next best
thing to showing up personally at someone's door. Ink from your pen touches the
stationary, your fingers touch the paper, your saliva seals the envelope.
Something tangible from your world travels through machines and hands, and
deposits itself in another's mailbox. Your letter is then carried inside as an
invited guest. The paper that was sitting on your desk, now sits on another's.
The recipient handles the paper that you handled. Letters create a connection
that modern, impersonal forms of communication will never approach.[1]
A good handwritten letter is a creative
act, and not just because it is a visual and tactile pleasure. It is a
deliberate act of exposure, a form of vulnerability, because handwriting opens
a window on the soul in a way that cyber communication can never do. You savor
their arrival and later take care to place them in a box for safe keeping.[2]
All of this
made me think of popular songs that revolve around writing letters, such as "I'm
Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," "A Soldier's Last
Letter," "Please, Mr. Postman," "P.S. I Love You".
Letters can
make changes.
Charles Schulz
created a character, Charlotte Braun, for his Peanuts cartoon. A letter led him
to kill her, literally, in the comic strip.
Annie Oakley
wrote to President McKinley to offer herself and 50 other female sharpshooters
for use in the Spanish-American War.
A letter to
Ian Fleming re-armed James Bond from a .25 caliber Beretta to a Walther PPK and
created the new character, Q.
Message in a Bottle was about a letter
discovered and a search ensuing that led to a romance between the two lead
characters.
Among the
more famous sets of correspondence is between John Adams and his wife Abigail. In
one letter, she urged him to allow women greater voice in the governing of the
country.
Albert
Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, mentioning
the possibility of a new weapon that would involve a nuclear chain reaction.
I have been thinking of the letters
of Paul. These letters changed Christianity. Today, some scholars would argue
in a negative way, but I would dissent from that view. His letters would influence
the way the churches would move into the Gentile world with the good news
regarding Jesus Christ.
I am
pausing for a moment to be grateful for the fact that Paul made the time to
write thoughtful letters to those for whom he cared.
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