The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keystroke

The Importance of Written Correspondence

By Lawrence of Oklahoma, on behalf of the Iron Loam Gang.

The initiated among us need no sermon on the importance of family, and on maintaining and repairing familial bonds wherever God has permitted us to do so. Those who are serious about restoring America know that it is up to them to maintain their pillar of America. Your family is likely your oldest social connection and safety net, and your duty to your mother, father, brothers, and sisters is your oldest obligation. However, for many of us, this is where our family practically ends. As Americans, we often move with the money, and we frequently abandon the pasture we have grazed in search of greener ones; and so our extended family is often distant from us, and we only occasionally see our uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. It is that last group that we should discuss, for they are increasingly isolated from their heirs.

If you are fortunate enough still to have living grandparents, they are likely Silent Generation, Boomers, or older Gen Xers — hardly America’s favorite generational cohorts. Despite their collective folly and negligence, your grandparents have decades of experience on you (the merit of which is individually indeterminate). Even if you do not find them an authority in politics or morality, you will find some theater they are an authority in, which you have an opportunity to learn from. Moreover, your living ancestors are a reservoir of your family history and the context of your life. Those who want to know more about who they are beyond themselves would do well to start with their older, living relatives.

If your bond with your grandparents is strained, I hope that I have convinced you to reach out to them again, but now the question is, how? Your highest priority should be seeing them face to face. But for those who live more than a few hours away, you should call them regularly, and just as important, you should write to them. You should write to them, for your edification and theirs.

For those who find few words pouring from the pen, involve the recipient of the letters in your life with updates on yourself and your loved ones. Involve yourself in theirs, asking your grandparents about how they grew up (more often than not, your grandparents grew up in an age we’d like to return to). Ask them for wisdom where you think it is appropriate. Discuss and develop your common interests, and find every excuse to continue writing to them. Short or long, it does not matter; every word exchanged is one less omission to regret at their departure.

My correspondence with my grandfather has been a great blessing in my life. I have long considered him a spiritual authority, someone whose wisdom in Christianity has been wrought through literal and metaphorical fire, and through time in Scripture with which I cannot contend. I have learned more about my father from my grandfather than from my father. I know more about Vietnam and the Civil War from his letters than from my textbooks. I know more about my family going back to the British Civil War than I did about my immediate family three years ago. But most importantly, I know my grandfather better than I did before I started. If my correspondence has been gratifying to me, it has been at least as much to my grandfather, who has taken up a great deal of new reading material after I committed to sending him my reviews of the literature. It has helped him as he has aged, slowing him down as he writes and helping him to compose his sentences more thoughtfully and clearly (a benefit I also experience). Our penmanship has been refined since I started, and our letters are now approaching eloquence in their composition.

Out of these blessings, among the most important is the letters themselves. I have them stored in an ammo box, along with the copied documents he has sent me. I have re-read most of them, especially those that pertain to spiritual leadership, and it is accessible in a way that a simple conversation or text message is not. It is not buried in either the back of my mind or in a long text chain; it is there for me to feel. Writing letters is an increasingly vanishing therapy among the youth, and if you count yourself among that number, escape it and strengthen your bonds with your family.