Preparing for Easter -

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Email, texts and IM’s notwithstanding, letter writing remains a universal form of communication that continues to stand the test of time. Penning a letter is an ancient art, with the first documented missive sent in 500 BC by a Persian Queen named Atossa. Also referred to as Epistles, the Christian Bible enshrines letters as scripture, with the church basing much of its theology on the letters of Saint Paul. 

 

Other letters, among many, worth remembering include:
*Abigail Adams letters to her husband John, second US President

*Albert Einstein’s letter to FDR, warning him that Germany had begun building the atomic bomb

*Martin Luther King’s letter from a Birmingham jail written on the edges of old newspaper

 

What you’ll read in a letter, whether from antiquity or from today, hasn’t changed all that much over the years. Greetings, gratitude, apologies, requests for assistance, declarations of love, descriptions of the everyday, especially the weather, appear most frequently.

 

For a Lenten practice this year, try writing a letter addressed to one of the individuals found in the lectionary readings during Holy Week. What questions might you ask, what word of hope, or experience might you share, with one of the named or unnamed people who appear during Jesus’ last week on earth?

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With heartfelt thanks to Linda Petrucelli (Hokuloa author-in-residence) for sharing this meditation.