I’ve always loved writing letters … and everything that goes along with letter writing, like stamps, return address labels, sealing wax, stationery and pens. Perhaps all things postal are in my genes. Postmen (and they all were men) span many generations on the Post side of my family, as far back as the 1600s.
Even as a teenager I started building a collection of letter writing resources. This was before email and cell phones created inexpensive and quick ways to communicate with family and friends. Back then letter writing was far more affordable than long distance phone calls. Over the years I succumbed to one beautiful set of stationery after another, boxed cards, individual cards, handmade cards, you name it.
A confession
I might as well also confess to my love of postage stamps. I try to match my stamp selection for a given letter to both the stationery and the recipient. There. I’ve said it. I never buy flag stamps on a roll as my husband does. Instead, I find it necessary to keep a wide selection of stamps on hand so I can have the perfect match. Over time, this has led to quite a collection of stamps.
April is National Letter Writing Month, an annual celebration of handwritten correspondence created by the United States Postal Service in 2001. (I’ve seen January and February also noted for this honor.)
Letter-writing prompts
Letter writing does seem to be a lost art in the era of texting, email and social media, doesn’t it? For that very reason, receiving a handwritten letter or note is quite special, like receiving a gift. The USPS has joined with Scholastic to teach letter writing skills to third and fourth graders.
The curriculum includes learning to write letters of encouragement, admiration, celebration, gratitude and letters across the distance. Treat those different types of letters as writing prompts.
Who in your life needs a letter of encouragement today? Have you told someone how much you admire the ministry in which they are engaged? Whose baptism can you celebrate? To whom do you owe a debt of gratitude? A woman who mentored you in the faith? And if those ideas aren’t enough, there are plenty of bloggers (like this one) who can offer up other letter writing ideas.
More than kisses
The English poet and Anglican cleric John Dunne wrote that “more than kisses, letters mingle souls.” It’s time to mingle some souls! Sit down and write that letter.
It may feel a bit awkward at first, touching pen to paper, using your whole hand not just your thumbs to text. Take it slow if your hand starts to cramp up. There’s the matter of licking an envelope. No big deal. Invest in some forever stamps so you can repeat this exercise somewhere in the future. (And now stamps featuring Mr. Rogers are available. How cool is that?)
Don’t expect an immediate response. It might take a week or more for your letter gift to arrive.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pull out some stationery, match it up with the proper pen and stamp, and write a letter.
Linda Post Bushkofsky is executive director of Women of the ELCA.
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Just reading this now – February 2019 but was touched by your letter writing thoughts and tools. I facilitated a class on “The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note”at an Educational Office Professionals Conference last April and will repeat a variation of that class this April. The responses from attendees were my sincerity and personal stories especially as I shared letters I had received from my Dad and that my paternal grandfather had sent to my parents after they moved to Washington from Wisconsin. Personal stories are so important. I love to write notes and send cards to people – often just because! What has kept me going are the gracious thanks from recipients especially when they say it came at just a time when they needed it most.
This is the second time this week that a post from the Women of the ELCA has inspired me to reach for my bible and read from the book of Proverbs. Thank you! Letters and cards are also my love language, and their value is mentioned in Proverbs 25:25. “Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” Don’t you just thirst for more personal communication? Doesn’t your heart just jump with delight when you see a colored envelope in your mailbox amidst all the bills and junk mail. I know I do! So much so that I have gathered all the birth dates of the women in my bible study group, so that I can send them a birthday card and give them that same feeling at least once a year! Loved your blog post. Sounds like we are the yayas of letter writing. Long live handwriting and the handwritten note! 🙂
Thanks, Vicky, for your kind words. Thanks for sharing the Proverbs verse and your birthday card plan for the women in your Bible study group. Sounds like a great plan!
I too love pens, cards, special stamps and receiving letters. Letters are treasures. My husband to be and I wrote every day of our college years. Now that he has died, I treasure these letters more than ever.
When we left home, my mother wrote every Monday. We called them the Monday letters even though they arrived on Thursday. I continue this legacy by writing my five grandchildren in college every Monday using special cards and stamps. Still love cards, stamps, and special pens. The grandchildren too seem to enjoy the letters.
Mary Hovland
Thanks for sharing Mary. How precious to have your college letters. I imagine they bring back to life events that were otherwise forgotten. And how wonderful you carry on the letter writing tradition with your grandchildren!
Letters capture unrehearsed, real moments and emotions and expressions of life. I found a letter my father had written to his soon-to-be mother-in-law during WWII, ensuring her that he would take could care of her daughter (my mother). It showed me aspects of my father that I couldn’t have found in any other way. Thanks for sharing Lillian.
Letters, as you suggest, Linda, may become precious to those of us in whose hands those letters find themselves even decades later. I inherited the letters that my paternal grandfather wrote to my paternal grandmother in the 1920s while they were “courting”. There were no telephones in the rural part of Pennsylvania where they lived and accordingly,, letter writing was the means of communication between them during the times when they were not together. It was fascinating to read his letters to her in chronological order. Initially Carlton wrote to Laura in a somewhat tenuous, yet hopeful way, always careful to describe to her that he was being financially productive in his chosen profession (a woman in the 1920s, of course, needed to concern herself with whether the man she chose to marry could support her and their future children). He inquired about whether she had had the opportunity to attend any community functions, and if her mother was well. As the months passed, the letters became more familiar, and after the passage of nearly a year, the writing was clearly more intimate, as Carlton ends one of his last letters to Laura with, “All my love to you and only you.”
What a gift to have those letters! With letters of family members, I do wonder what those individuals would think about having a different generation read their intimate conversations. I suppose if they didn’t want them read, they could have destroyed them themselves. Thanks for sharing Belinda!
Thank you for reminding us that letter writing does more than internet mail to help us envision an extraordinary closeness with the recipient. We are more likely to express our real thoughts about the world around us, our friendship and our memories of the good old days. Shalom