Chris McDonnell, UK
christymac733@gmail.com

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October 4, 2017  

The postman brings a letter or two…

There is something curious about hearing the letter box rattle in the morning, followed by the dull flop of assorted mail hitting the mat. Gathering it up we find the usual mixture of advertising circulars, bills, insurance reminders and then… a white envelope with a handwritten address appears amongst the pile. You recognise the writing. All the other material gets pushed aside and you settle to read a letter from a friend, maybe someone you haven’t seen for a long time. Enjoy.

It doesn’t happen often, for now we live in a more transient world. With the advent of social media, the wide-spread use of email and the ever-present mobile phone, our means of communicating with each other have undergone a radical change. For many, letter-writing has become archaic, an art and skill that is rarely practiced.

That is a pity. The liturgy of the Word would be poorer if the letters of the apostles had not been written and saved for our benefit through the ages. Having visited Ephesus Paul wrote to the people after he left to remind them of his teaching about Jesus of Nazareth.

With e-mail, as the inbox fills, we reach for the Trash button and so often we lose valued words along with the garbage.

The arrival of a new book this week set me thinking about letters. It’s title – ‘Love, Henri’. It’s another addition to the ever-growing collection of books by or about Henri Nouwen. In this case, it is a collection of his Letters written over a period of some twenty years. Many people wrote to him asking his advice, sharing their worries. Here we have his responses, written with care and concern for his correspondent, often finishing with the words ‘Love, Henri’ That they were saved indicates the value placed on them by those who maybe read them over the breakfast table, only to return to them later to reflect on his carefully chosen words.

We still use the ‘letter’ as communication in the Church. Our bishops write ‘Pastoral letters’, an occasion when they exercise their role as teacher to the local Church. In the same way, the Bishop of Rome issues ‘Encyclical letters’ addressed to the whole Church.

There are times when writing a letter is a mark of love, of respect. It might be a joyous occasion of marriage when the invited guest can’t attend the Wedding but instead writes a letter of congratulation to the couple who are marrying. It might be reflective when a friend who has been ill dies and leaves a family, bereft and lost. Then our written words express our care and consolation, our sharing in their grief. Words matter and the right words remain with us. It is finding the right words that can be so hard. That was the great gift of Henri Nouwen, his words touched the many people to whom he wrote, so much so that they kept them safe.

Our correspondence is personal, a letter addressed to us is private. We share it with others only if we wish. That is the great risk with much of the social media; once sent our control of who sees the contents is gone. That can give rise to confidences being broken when sharing was not intended.

The signature on a letter is the mark that tells us who has written to us, the authenticity of the words confirmed by the unique hand-formed pattern. When you sign many letters, you often develop a signature that bears little resemblance to the letters that form it. Welcoming a parent at school one evening - we hadn’t met before - we shook hands and smiling he greeted me with the words ‘Ah the straight line and squiggle man!’. I still remember his words some thirty years on for he was right, my signature, my mark had become just that, a straight line and squiggle.

When correspondence is published it is usually because it has something significant to tell us about the person. I often feel it a pity that we only get one half of the story; what about the person they are writing to? What did they say that started the ball rolling?

Their letters also tell us much about the diversity of their friendships. For example, a glance through the index of names in the five volumes of Thomas Merton’s letters is illuminating enough, before a single letter is read. He managed his vast correspondence without a lap top, within the strictures of the monastic day and all this before his untimely death at the age of 53. Not to mention writing his many books and considerable quantity of poetry.

‘Your letter came this morning, thank you’. Maybe you should write back.