On Writing Letters

The Danish postal service no longer carries letters! Wow!

After 400 years of delivering letters on from Dec 30th 2025 they only carry parcels.

Postboxes are redundant and, for a while stamps, will be refunded.

I am amazed.

After Christmas I went out to buy some notepaper to write some letters… some actual letters.

Notepaper is hard to find. Stationary shops overflow with journals and notebooks but the tools for writing a letter ? Not easy to find.

It seems we spend more time writing to ourselves that we do writing to other people.

I wonder if that says something about us?

As someone who has journalled for years, I am guilty as charged. Writing, reflecting, making lists: these are invaluable tools. To the extent that I only really feel I can think properly if I have a pen in my hand.

When though did we loose the practise of writing to other people? And how much has been lost along with this practice?

In a letter you can consider and weigh your words, you can say so much more than can be said in a text or a tweet. You must be careful though because a letter may well be re-read and it can also be kept.

Sometimes though the art of good communication really needs the spaciousness of a blank page. Combine that with the time given to both the crafting and the reading of the contents and you have powerful thing.

Think of all those literary greats whose ‘collected letters’ have provided such a rich insight into their lives and times. And over half of the New Testament is in letter format. I have often been so glad that Jesus didn’t leave us a manual on church growth but instead we get to peer through a spider’s web of connections, friendships, failings and learning curves – all in a way that is so very human.

This year I have resolved to write more letters (I did finally find some notepaper). I do not have the gift of making crafty things or cakes if the spirit of friend needs a lift but can give time and thought to writing and thereby maintain the threads of connection which in the case of some of dearest friends goes back over many years.

‘The Correspondent’ by Virginia Evans has been a recent inspiration. A novel entirely based on the letters sent by one woman in her later years, reflecting on her life and in many ways putting wrong things to right. An excellent read, I recommend it.

Another plan for this year inspires me: I intend to transcribe into digital format some letters in my possession, letters from and partly about my past. I hope this will not feel maudlin but rather a celebration. I still have the space left in me to learn from the past and even to change for the future.