Elizabeth Wood
Dear Friends,
I recently traveled “home” to England, to spend time with my father, who is planning to move house. One afternoon we set about “de-cluttering” his flat and getting rid of furniture and other items he doesn’t plan to take with him. I opened the pantry and looked at the rows of small jars of herbs and spices, all carefully labeled—in my mother’s handwriting.
My mother died in 2001—which tells you how long some of those spices have been there! I still recognize her handwriting wherever I see it—the distinctive way she formed her upper-case M’s and N’s, her lower-case e’s and t’s. Of course, I remember her in all sorts of ways, but it’s a bittersweet moment when I see her handwriting on something. My own handwriting is much less neat than hers—this despite being tortured at school with hours of learning cursive through a textbook called the “Marion Richardson Method”—practicing lines and curves, then tracing letters and words, before being pronounced proficient enough to graduate to the ultimate prize: a fountain pen.
These days I am always excited to see anything in the mailbox that has a handwritten envelope—it signifies something personal, not a bill or a statement or junk mail! I can usually tell immediately who it’s from—my father writes in turquoise ink, my sister is a doctor (enough said!), my best friend uses neat block letters, my brother sharp and angular ones.
Imagine for a moment how exciting it must have been for the early Christians to see Paul’s handwriting on a letter! In Galatians 6, v11 he writes: “See what large letters I make, when I am writing in my own hand!” Paul’s reason for writing was to strengthen and encourage the church in which he had so many friends and in which he had labored so diligently. In the epistles, he speaks of the nature and unity of the church, and the responsibilities of believers as followers of Christ. His letters are messages of hope and support, a way of spreading news and deepening understanding of the gospel, teaching others how to live as disciples of Christ when he was no longer physically present and in a world that had rejected him. We can imagine those letters being read over and over again, the contents discussed and debated, each sentence parsed for its true meaning.
The act of writing things down has a very specific impact on the brain—I, for one, must write down anything I really want to remember! A practice that has worked for many is to copy Bible verses out into a notebook or journal. In Deuteronomy 17 v18-20, the kings of Israel are commanded to personally make their own hand-copy of God’s law. A king could have ordered someone else to make him a copy, but the law says that he was to do it himself.
Writing it down means taking the time to internalize it, to sit with it for a moment longer, to retain its message, to deepen our connection to the word of God.
Homework for today is in two parts:
Find a Bible passage or a few verses and copy them out in your own handwriting, let them really speak to you.
Write a letter or a card to someone and share news, encouragement, support, or love. Make someone’s day with a handwritten envelope in the mail!
—Elizabeth