Lost art

As a kid in Detroit, I filled my sunny spring and summer days playing baseball. But when it was really windy, flying kites became an annual fad that would last a couple weeks.

Our next door neighbors, the Flowers, had a beautiful daughter much older than I, but no son. And Mr. Weldon Flowers would occasionally borrow me from my parents. He'd invite me to join him and his wife, Mary, on their porch to enjoy a salty snack and a Coke. Two things we rarely had at our house. When I got my dignity handed to me by a neighbor kid, Mr. Flowers taught me boxing basics. He'd been a Golden Glover as a boy. 

Then one brilliantly sunny day, my occasional mentor spotted me flying a kite and had a trick to share. Mr. Flowers tore off the corner of a newspaper ad and punched a hole in it. He then took the stick that held my kite string and stuck it through the hole in the paper. Suddenly, the wind snagged the raggedy newsprint and it began to slide up the line. Hundreds of feet into the air. 

"You're sending your kite a letter," Mr. Flowers explained. It was a magical childhood moment. The kite jogged back and forth in the wind, its fabric tail twisting and turning. At ten years old, I was young enough to still pretend the kite or someone gliding in the sky would read the airborne note. 

Penning letters is a lost art today. Or typing them for that matter. Sure, we send emails and texts with emoji's but we rarely receive a letter from friends or family. My sister, Barbara, would frequently send letters to my big brother, John, when he attended the U.S. Naval Academy. My mom would often bake him dozens of scrumptious cookies and pack them in shirt boxes to ship to our midshipman, and my sister would enclose a letter on the latest family events. He would write her colorful notes back. I enjoyed listening as she read them aloud. This was the 1960's, so long distance calls were a big deal. Those lengthy letters from home or Annapolis kept us connected. 

Personal messages in the written word are powerful and lasting. Consider the memory magic filmmaker Ken Burns achieved in his documentary, "The Civil War." Simply reading letters from 19th Century soldiers and lovers transported millions back in time and breathed life into those long gone. 

A significant portion of Christian scripture is letters from Jesus' disciples to early believers scattered around the Mediterranean Sea. Many of them impassioned notes like this: "Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

Or this on love from Paul to his followers in Corinth, "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13:7-8)

Timeless and beautiful.

In 2020, when we are isolated in our homes and separated from each other by the the icy presence of global pandemic, we are given the gift of time. Time free from the pull of outside distractions. Time to recover the lost art of writing letters and sharing our thoughts and feelings across miles or around the corner. 

Or sky high in prayer like a message sailing up to a dancing kite. 

Happy Mother's Day.