More than kisses, letters mingle souls (John Donne)

 

I fell in love with my husband through his letters.

We met in London during the Christmas vacation and had two dates before I had to return. He was studying at the local university and I was two hundred miles away. No mobile phones. No social media. And calls from phone boxes too expensive for student budgets.

So we wrote to each other every week.  

I remember the cold tingle in my stomach at the sound of post through the letterbox. How I made myself wait as long as possible before opening the envelope. The joy whilst reading. And the disappointment when I reached the end, wishing each missive was longer.

He wrote a wonderful balance of chatty news and romance. We got to know each other well through those letters. We shared daily triumphs and frustrations as well as deeply held hopes and beliefs. Little did I know what a solid foundation those letters would form.

Letter writing is rather a lost art.

But I was delighted to see Paul Eddy’s Facebook post about writing condolence letters to all the close members of Royal family after Prince Phillip’s death and how he received thank you cards. He wrote letters of thanks and encouragement to twenty leaders during the pandemic and had replies from all, including a two page handwritten letter from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

During the first lockdown, when our Boys’ Brigade Company had to stop meeting and we had yet to discover the joys of Zoom, I wrote individual letters to each boy. I wanted them to know that we were still a family, working together, each one remembered and prayed for. They responded with photos of activities and themselves wrote cards to care home residents and healthcare staff reminding them of the same.

Physical letter writing still has power. Perhaps its novelty makes it more so.

It’s easy to forget or devalue it. But I believe letter writing is as important as book, poetry, or blog writing. Letter writers are writers. It takes skill to pick the right words. Time is taken to put care and love into each sentence. Letter writing is a craft.

As Christian writers we have great examples to follow. Look at CS Lewis’s Screwtape Letters or the recently published Letters of JRR Tolkien or those he wrote from Father Christmas.  And we can’t forget St Paul and company, whose epistles make up so much of the New Testament. What excitement and trepidation those must have evoked when they first arrived? The whole Bible really is God’s love letter to us.

And in turn, we are His letter to the world:

“Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ Himself wrote it – not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiselled into stone, but carved into human lives” (2 Corinthians 3.3 The Message)

So while we continue to work on our formal writing projects, let’s not forget to use the talent for words that God has given us in the everyday opportunities too. And maybe consider who we can encourage today with a letter?

Liz Manning fits writing around being an Occupational Therapist, BB captain, wife, and mum to two adults. Or perhaps it's the other way round. She blogs regularly at https://thestufflifeismadeofblog.wordpress.com/, has one WIP and more ideas in the pipeline.