“Dad, when the Corinthians do something bad, how come we’re the ones who get in trouble?” My family remembers that it was with some indignation that I asked this question at the dinner table one Sunday after church.

We were living in Singapore. My dad had preached that morning, striving to connect the witness of the Early Church to our daily lives. As I reflect back on it now, it was because that connection had been made that I felt somehow wronged. It mattered to me what the Corinthians did! That’s what my question actually reveals.

Letters connect us to each other, no matter the physical distance or even the time that separates the reader from the writer. We find letters written home from the Civil War by people we don’t know can touch our hearts as deeply as a sympathy card sent by close friends two days after a personal loss. And because that is true, what we write really matters.

Not long ago, when my parents were living with us, I came downstairs to find them laboring over a greeting card. They had a draft on lined paper in front of them and were discussing what to say next and how best to refine what they had already written. When the discussion was done, my mother then carefully penned their greeting onto the fancy card, taking care to fit the text into the space available.

Writing letters and cards gives us a way to say things we seldom manage to say in person. Writing can give us more time to turn a phrase than our speaking typically does. And there is a kind of intimacy that inhabits the shadow of distance that nudges us to write things we might never have the courage to say face to face.

In our congregations, in our Women of the ELCA circles and in our synod’s Retired Servants Committee, we hold a deeply shared desire to keep connected to each other through a card-writing ministry. We do this because we know that letters can hold people close when circumstances have pushed us apart.

No wonder that the Church has found its old family letters to be such a treasure that we read them every week! It really does matter to us what the Corinthians did. And it really does matter what St. Paul wrote to them—for when we find our life reflected in their exchange, our sense of belonging in the same Church with them is confirmed.

For coming up on a year now, we have been more isolated from each other than any of us can remember. Our weekly gatherings have moved online, where we can’t really sing or share the handclasp of peace. We’ve even lost the proximity of the center-aisle-greeting-line where the eagerness of some to get home and the habit of others to dawdle pushes us closer to each other than we would normally stand!

We’ve lost something dear to us; we feel pushed apart these days! Not only by the pandemic but also by polarized politics and the growing distance between our convictions about what we believe would make things right. Our opinions about whether the changes that we see coming to our lives in church and as a nation are an improvement or a setback are yet one more thing that increases the distance between us. We feel an urgency to hold on to each other these days.

It may come as no surprise that the secular calendar has a day for keeping in touch by letter. Sunday, February 7, is national “Send a Card to a Friend Day.”

Whether motivated by that fun invitation or by the long habit of the Church to keep in touch, why not take time, today, to write a letter to someone else?

Why not light a candle of hope in the darkness of these difficult days and send a card to a friend whose company you miss, or compose a careful letter to connect with someone who doesn’t talk to you any more.

Perhaps now is a good time to ponder all the distances that the Early Church faced and to take up a pen and write your version of “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you” to another member of the Church. (II Corinthians 13:13) Here’s the letter I wrote to you today:

Send a Friend a Letter

It may come as no surprise that the secular calendar has a day for keeping in touch by letter. Sunday, February 7, is national “Send a Card to a Friend Day.”

Whether motivated by that fun invitation or by the long habit of the Church to keep in touch, why not take time, today, to write a letter to someone else?