This is a time like no other.  I sit at home, socially distant, sheltering in place, day after day, overwhelmed with oddity and yet trying to find the uniqueness of each 24-hour period.  I have to remind myself what day it is in order not to miss appointments.  It feels like the whole world went on a retreat. We began to wonder, when this ends, if it ends, how will the world emerge from it?  Will we be different or the same?

For many years I have thought that one of the most healthy spiritual practices a person can engage in is to put their feelings down on paper.  In an age of text messages, sound bites, emails, and short attention spans, actually taking the time to write out one’s thoughts and feelings can be healthy.

The invitation of this work is for us to write letters as a personal spiritual act.  To take advantage of this unusual time to put down on paper our thoughts and feelings specifically in a series of letters.

For many of us, this could be a very personal experience of sharing what is not easily articulated to ourselves or to others or to God.  The act of making those private thoughts and feelings even a bit more public, that is, putting them “down on paper,” and sharing them with another human being or God or to face them ourselves, requires courage in some cases. 

Writing them may help us deal with the past, live in the present, and prepare for the future.   We may ask ourselves:  What is our spiritual core?  What do we believe about God?  How do we feel about our parents?  What do we need to let go of about a significant other?  How do we say thank you to a teacher or mentor?  What are our beliefs about life and death?  What legacy would we like to leave for the future?  How do we make sense of this particular time?  What does it take for us to move forward in it?  What goals do we hope to set for ourselves?  Where do we find meaning in this time?  Where do we find holiness in it?

Letter writing might be a way for us to confront, address and deal with our grief of what has been and is being lost in this time.  It might strengthen our spirit.  Let me suggest there are five letters every Christian should consider writing during their lifetime.  They may be particularly important to write during this Covid-time, as we work through our emotions of this experience.

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David E. Gray serves as senior pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland.