Nowadays, letters come in the form of emails. Sadly, the fresh ink on scented paper has vanished along with the DVD player and the home phone. Technology has replaced romance to a degree. There seems to be a finality to email documents. There’s a certain permanence to it in the sense of its distancing. One can’t get too personal in an email like a letter could. After all, a letter is handwritten with effort in lieu of clicking letters on a keyboard. One could make mistakes in a letter, like the “pops” on a record, which begets a certain personality of its own. Once one writes a letter, there’s no other letter quite like it and there are no myriads of copies and corrections to be made so that perceived perfection is gracefully lacking. Time has taken away the art of the letter. No one has time to write it down, then mail it. In this fast paced society in the world we live in, you can’t get an email fast out enough and then to respond to it without much thought. Maybe, that’s it, thought. Crafting an email letter entails much less thought to it, I surmise, as the euphemisms are fast and furious. In seems like the English language has been reduced to less than two hundred or so, “pat” words and phrases which everybody uses in their own colloquial way. There is a sense of point, counterpoint. One is drawn into email “battle” as the words are eroded into punchlines and one-liners. How adroit we have all come. The future has made us cold and plain. In a flash, one can know what another is thinking half way across the globe, and back again within seconds to minutes. One feels exposed and vulnerable without much thought taken into it.
Previously, letters would arrive in the mail, not just bills and throw away stuff, but true letters. For example, in the “old days,” one might have gotten bad news in a letter. The dread of opening the letter was palpable. Today, you get a simple standard email stating quite impersonally, you’ve been fired, or you failed your test, or you’re not my type, thanks. The “good” news is just as impersonal. I was privy to that a while back as I had received my congratulatory response to finishing several years of study in my Master’s Degree in Christian Apologetics in a very “standard” email. After all that hard work, thousands of pages read and hundreds of hours consumed over a seven year period of time, it was over in one email. Congratulations. The end. The void that email sent throughout my whole body could have sent shivers and tears for anyone with half a heart. It was painful and the banality of email proved it, once again. Perhaps, it’s much too much to ask that we, as a civilized society, pay attention to what we say in an email but, perhaps that is asking too much of ourselves, isn’t it? What would that requirement look like? Well, for starters, one might introduce caring, compassion, and humility. Yet, how are those conveyed in word text? The font seems so bland, doesn’t it? There is no life to it. Let’s face it, time has grabbed ahold of our manners and the email has replaced “good taste” with expediency. If only one could see the true emotions expressed in an email, perhaps, that could be a first start, but I warn you not to hold your breath. With the advent of social media, even emails have become like the DVD player, eventually being replace with the next best virtual “thing.”
A reprieve. The other day, I thought to use the “email” etiquette and write an email to the head of my apologetics program. In that email, I poured out my true feelings and left my very heart on that email. I thanked the school, its professors, and classmates for a first rate education in my field of study. I truly miss my school. Sadly, at 65 years of age, I had to come to the long end of a road which God has asked me to travel on. I certainly never dreamed of finishing a Master’s Degree in Christian Apologetics at Biola University. It was truly a miracle, as far as I was concerned. So, in the email, I personally thanked all my professors, specifically, Dr. Craig Hazen, who is the head of the program. It was a thoughtful email as email’s go. I much rather would have preferred to write him a letter, but then would he have received it? Was there an expediency, a time factor, whatever? To my great delight, I did receive a response from Dr. Hazen, today, the 30th of January, 2021. It was a precious response, one which I will treasure the rest of my life. See, these professors had not only been teachers, they had been friends, and more importantly than that, they had been brothers in Christ. The humility that all of them showed me throughout my career at Biola culminated in the email sent by Dr. Hazen. He certainly wasn’t obligated to write a response, but he did. It was the manner of response that reminded me of a letter. See, when one gets a letter of the same category response that Dr. Hazen gave me in his email, it takes on a life of its own. \
It was kind, caring, and loving. Dr Hazen reminded me why I miss Biola so much. It wasn’t just about the learning, the studying, the grades, and such. It was about bearing fruit. The vine is Christ and today, Dr. Hazen remembered that bearing fruit means to give love and support. Today, I received a letter in the form of an email from a fellow believer. I felt part of a community. Thank you, God for giving me the great opportunity to be a part of the greater community.