Letter Writing

My mother has found over thirty years of letters I wrote to her from around the globe. I was a great letter writer to her, at least, although friends complained I did not give them enough details.

I have letters over 120 years old written in old Czech from my great-grandfather to his then fiance, my great-grandmother. These are in a file in storage in Illinois. They are love letters.

My mother kept the letters my dad sent her from the "front" in WWII. Bits are cut out, of course, as all the letters were read by authorities and locations removed.

Letter writing has passed into the realms of  "lost art".  Letter writing kept families together for centuries, even millenia. In fact, the art of letter writing was prized and children were taught how to write informal and formal letters.

Without letter writing, we would not have the epistles in the New Testament.

Some novels were written in the "letter format". And, many famous plays contain letters.

One thinks of the letters in Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion, for two examples, and how important these are to the plots.

We now write short tweets, comprised of abbreviations and odd combinations. We write on Skype in chat acronyms. One must learn these in order to communicate even in text messaging.

But, the beautiful idea of sitting down and composing excellent sentences for a family member or a friend, even that "special friend" has become an ideal of the past.

I hope letter writing does not completely disappear. It is interesting that the postal services of both Ireland and America have fallen into disarray. In my childhood, one could expect mail twice a day, delivered to one's home. Now, the postal services find bags of unopened letters in mail carriers' houses, or even in the River Liffey.  I lost an entire $1,000 dollars worth of books, including rare editions of Thomas Aquinas, sent through the post to my new address. These were deemed as "stolen".

Also, a Christmas package of goodies was not delivered to my apartment in Ireland, but sent back after one try, when I was out at Mass.

Many people no longer trust the postal services of some countries. This may contribute to the drop in letter writing. If one is not sure whether a missive will actually get to a friend's address, why bother?

However, the English postal system seems good to this day. I hope it stays that way. American mail service is considering not delivering on Saturdays in this area.

How sad. The passing of an era of communication which was more genteel and kind....

I wrote a letter to the Pope almost four months ago. I do not know if His Holiness received it. It was in Spanish. You may all take a minute to pray that he did read it and may respond.

Some of my older readers may remember this popular song from the pre-twitter, pre-email and fb days....

Give me a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain't got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I'ma goin' home
My baby just wrote me a letter

I don't care how much money I gotta spend
Got to get back to my baby again
Lonely days are gone, I'ma goin' home
My baby just wrote me a letter

Well she wrote me a letter
Said she couldn't live without me no more
Listen mister can't you see
I gotta get back to my baby once more, anyway