Correspondence

I have been bestowed with the pleasure and special grace of corresponding with a few people in my life. Email is the the wrong medium; although, that’s the form it takes. How is it that the same inbox contains a thousand advertisements, a few tedious meetings being scheduled, a steady supply of rejections, and very occasionally a letter from a friend that must have taken hours in the composition and a lifetime for the understanding (but also, beautifully, a schedule for a meeting)?

One man’s attention to the world around him conveyed in the grammar of his note begs me to raise my attention. I cannot write rote sentences in reply; it would be an ingratitude for the gift. The proper register is not a missive, but poetry. If, in the infinite variables of time and taste, there are people who read what I write, I’d lay these letters next to anything else I’ve written. If, as the canon of Scripture maintains, that letters written between people could be the breathed Word of God, then I’d hope that these letters last forever.

Each click that tosses an email into the virtual trash robs me of time to respond in kind to my friend, but I suppose I have all the time there is.