Writing Letters (Bruce Ray Smith)

Once a week, always on the same afternoon, I drop in on my friend Edith Graf, who is 98 and lives nearby, in the neighborhood. When I complained to her, on a recent visit, that my mother’s deafness made talking on the telephone difficult—sometimes frankly exasperating!—she advised me to write letters. Old-fashioned letters, the kind one puts in an envelope and sends through the Postal Service.
So I’ve been doing that, and getting to know my own (90 year-old) mother. She’s more perceptive, funnier and slier than I knew, and as a letter writer, unassuming and cheerful. I do remember it being said of her, when I was a boy, “Phyllis writes a newsy letter.” But these are better than newsy, though they are that. They’re understated, sometimes wry, and unmistakably, from one adult to another.
Though I’ve written a book on humility, I still resist being taught: I prefer to do the teaching myself. But I’ve clearly been instructed, even ordered about, by Edith. Isn't it nice to have friends?
Those of us who love our Lord will have to get used to being surprised. It’s a pleasure, I’m surprised to say, to be instructed.