Letters

I’ve been writing a number of letters this week. Some I’ll mail, some I need to think about.



It all started after writing class the other day. We finished the fall term and I was presenting certificates to the guys. I was urging them to keep writing because “words matter”. I told them two brief stories. First, I mentioned German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I told the class at 39, Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis for his part in challenging Hitler’s regime. He wrote extensively while held in a concentration camp. I keep his “prison prayer” taped in my locker along with a quote from him – “it’s easier to suffer in obedience”.


I explained to the class Bonhoeffer’s words changed the way committed Christians looked at their moral obligation to confront evil. His words, written in a prison, mattered.


I then told the class the story of Dr. King writing his famous Birmingham jail essay on toilet paper and smuggling it out. I told them his words “freedom is a gift from God” echo through every prison in the world. Every person under the yoke of oppression takes comfort in Dr. King’s words.


That evening, as I was working a crossword puzzle, Dom came over to see me. He’s a huge black man who looks capable of squashing a car in his hands. He is a college student and a member of the writing class. He handed me a stack of papers. It was a copy of Dr. King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”.


Dom told me he’d never heard the story behind the letter or even read the letter. But, after hearing me talk about it he asked one of the GED teachers to print him a copy.


I laughed and told him it was the first time anyone had ever listened to me. Dom turned serious: “Don’t ever say that Larry. We all listen to you. What you say matters. You inspired me to read this and you were right. It’s the most powerful essay I ever read.”


My words mattered. That rolled around in my mind for a few minutes. Every week I write my youngest son and get no response. Twice in the last six months I’ve written my ex, nothing. I can’t get my own parents to read what I write. “It’s nobody’s business you’re in prison. What will people think?”


This week, I wrote my folks. I told them this experience has changed me forever. I then wrote this: “you may find it hard to believe, but God loves the people in prison with me; the murderers, rapists and thieves just as much as He loves the people you go to church with.” Hard concept to swallow when you’re following all the rules, but most of God’s message runs counter to our normal way of thinking.


Then, I wrote my youngest son. I explained to him that a man can’t be judged by a series of acts or failings, but by his heart and character. I then told him Bonhoeffer wrote that too many Christians follow “cheap grace”. We say God loves us, God forgives us, but we don’t think how powerful a message that really is. “You have to love and forgive the way God loves and forgives us.”


I don’t know if my folks will get what I’m saying. I don’t know if my son – or his mom – will understand. But, at least I put on paper something real, something true. I owed it to them – and myself – to try.


I then started a letter to my ex. I realized all these months I’d been hoping for a miracle, hoping that she would magically decide to write me or show up for a visit and say “I’ve always loved you”. That’s never going to happen because she’s incapable of that. She can’t be what she isn’t.


I always wanted her to love me the way I loved her. I would have crawled across broken glass for her. There was nothing she could have done to stop me from loving her, to make me give up on her.


That isn’t the way she felt about me. That’s not how she defines love, marriage and commitment. I’m sad about that, but I can’t make her love me. I can’t make her say “our marriage is worth fighting for; you’re worth fighting for.”


I realized as I wrote that letter, if she couldn’t feel that way for me, she won’t ever feel it. She’s probably lonely and wants companionship. I understand that and hope she finds it. But, she won’t find love because love is tough; sometimes it’s difficult, but it’s always courageous. Love means loving “in spite of”. She, I regrettably have realized, isn’t capable of that. I, however, will always love her even as I know that love won’t be returned.


That letter is not being mailed. The other thing I’ve learned about words is, while they can inspire and illuminate, they can also hurt. My letter to her is the truth. But, sometimes the truth needs to be put in a drawer. The only thing such a letter would accomplish is hurt her. That’s never a good reason for any words.