The Fading Art of Letter Writing

 

                                                         The Apostle Paul writing a letter, not Ruth

 Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with all of you. 

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write. 

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.

2 Thessalonians 3: 16-18 NRSVue

[Verse 1]
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain't got time to take a fast train

[Refrain]

Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home
My baby just wrote me a letter

[Bridge]
Well, she wrote me a letter
Said she couldn't live without me no more
Listen, mister, can't you see –
I got to get back to my baby once more?
Any way, yeah

         The Letter -- The Box Tops 1967

Not long ago one of Ruth's sisters (blog reader Shirley) passed on a cache of letters dating back nearly 50 years sent by Ruth from various locations we've lived. These include the descriptive and vivid missives from Newfoundland after we moved from downtown Toronto to outport Newfoundland to begin both a ministry and a family. Some of these letters were copied and sent to several family members and friends. They are often entertaining and reminders that we had a lot more energy in our mid-twenties than we do now. Ruth was an excellent writer. 

In one Ruth shares about starting the first youth group ever amongst the five congregations we served (Ruth did a lot of unpaid work) with about two dozen participants in no time. She also mentioned that we collaborated with other pastoral charges along the Notre Dame Bay shore in bringing more than a hundred teens together for a fun event we dubbed the Great Cod Cup with a clever trophy created by a colleague. This event had gone out of our memories, along with a lot of other activities she recounts. Ruth regularly commented earnestly that there was a sense that God was at work despite the resistance to these mainlanders with their newfangled notions. 

The timing for revisiting these letters was somehow poignant given the news that postal delivery as we have known it for generations may be coming to an end in Canada. The postal workers strike has been a reminder that we don't receive much correspondence as "snail mail" anymore. The art of letter writing has been fading like the Cheshire Cat for a while.

Of course we do send texts and emails, although the latter is considered old technology by many and so are texts for many teens. We do communicate, perhaps too much at times, yet there was something quite meaningful about getting a card or a letter in the mailbox. And does anyone go back through emails to reminisce? 

The Newfoundland letters also got me thinking about the letters of the apostle Paul and others that make up a sizeable portion of the Christian scriptures, some of which predate the gospels. Sometimes Paul often dictated letters to a scribe but at the conclusion of 2 Thessalonians he notes that he has penned that one himself. 

Most of these New Testament letters were meant to be circulated amongst multiple congregations even though they usually had specific addresses, no small feat given that there wasn't the equivalent of the postal service of the past 175 years we eventually took for granted in Canada.  

The ecumenical lectionary includes an epistle/letter reading lots of days (Ephesians 6:10-20 today) and not only might we read them, we could imagine how they were delivered. They arrived by ship, riders on horseback, and walkers, the equivalent of "planes, trains and automobile in ancient times.

I suppose we will wish letter writing a nostalgic and fond farewell but I'll keeping reading from those Spirit-breathed New Testament letters even if doing so is another fading tradition. 

                                                                Nick Bantock, writer and artist