THE LOST ART OF LETTER WRITING

LEARNING MODULE: ILLINOIS

Prison letters make up much of the New Testament.
It’s also how we start a new relationship.

 

There’s a quality of connection in written letters that can be—and often is—much better, much deeper than live conversation. We have lost this gorgeous form of communication, and we are missing out. Especially in an age of texts, tweets, emails.

Prison letters are just about the only place where the form still exists today.

So you might be a little anxious.

“Scared as hell,” one thirty-something team member told me last year. But she later told me, “I talk about things in my letters with W— now that I don’t really talk about with anyone else in my life. It’s my favorite part of the week.”

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
— Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Letters are where we in One Parish One Prisoner discover each other.

Written correspondence has been the foundation of our work with men in prison, and a place of quiet joy and honesty. Letters are where initial trust is built, which is essential for the road of re-entry ahead.

Someone in prison is likely asking, Is this just a nice person in the community, or are these people who really care about the real me? Can I picture myself actually spending time with these people when I’m out?

In a recent One Parish One Prisoner Kickoff Orientation, a new congregant asked our longtime friend Alex—who wrote to us for years while he was in maximum-security prison facilities—what he thought a “good letter” was.

Alex answered,

“A good letter was whenever someone reached out and really wanted to know what’s going on in me.

So, when you write a letter, don’t overthink it. Just speak to them how you would speak to someone you care about. Like a friend.

Be honest. Be sincere.

What you’ve already given them is ten times better than what the streets have shown them.
”

OUR GOAL: RELATIONSHIPs oF TRUST

Here are three words to keep in mind through this entire journey ahead. We’ll come back to them over and over again. They can help point us toward the connection we seek.

CONSISTENCY

Most folks in prison carry a deep wound of abandonment. They’ve been dropped or forgotten repeatedly. We can either be part of the healing of this wound, or a deepening of it. It can be devastating for someone in prison to begin a relationship with someone on the outside and then have that relationship terminated prematurely because they lost interest or got too busy to stay in touch. 

Consistency, then, is even more important than the content of your letters. It communicates to them that they are valuable. Not disposable or forgettable. 

So pick a day of the week, every other week, to write. Put it on the calendar. (Seriously, do this now.)


CURIOSITY

We don’t give advice, coach, correct, or mentor. We may learn something that concerns us, or bothers us. The holiest stance is to be curious. To wonder, with compassion: What’s the story that has brought this person to this belief, desire, or attitude? And: Do I have assumptions I could re-examine?

Curiosity frees us from judgment, and opens the gift of better questions. And much more exciting conversations.

KINSHIP

We belong to each other. We aren’t the helpers, they aren’t the project to be fixed. Beneath incredibly different life experiences, we find an equality of heart. The joy, the fun, is discovering this.

You just being your authentic self invites another to just be themselves.

PRISON LETTERS ARE RADICAL

Much of the New Testament—what Christians have called holy scripture—is prison letters. Many were written by a formerly violent aggressor (Paul the Apostle) trying to describe something new, building relationships with new communities, many of whom understandably trouble trusting him. You are participating in this story, this form, now. Maybe you’ll read Paul’s letters differently now.

You are also dipping into an important tradition: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Letters and Papers from Prison”; Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Not to mention the prophet Jeremiah’s oracles from the pit and the chained stocks.

The word of the Lord, our tradition repeatedly dares to say, might not just go into prisons, but be coming from prison cells. Why would we want to miss out?

And writing letters into prison is to be in fellowship with those in the “hell” society has built. The underworld, the realm of darkness and torment and punishment, cut off from the land of the living. With your letters, you are already joining Jesus’ divine movement through the gates of Hades. (Matthew 16:18)

Don’t be afraid.

Jesus says this a lot.

A STORY

Before we give you some prompts for your letters this month, here’s a beautiful story from our friends at the Bruderhof: how a quiet rural family’s little daughter started writing a man on death row. That started a relationship that grew into a decade, and embraced the entire family. (Hint: maybe it’s ok to involve your kids on this journey.)

PROMPTS TO START

Below are some ideas to prompt the kind of letters worth writing—and reading. Where you hopefully see yourself anew, in this new correspondence. These prompts might spark better ideas. Go for it.

Why Are You Doing This?

Most everyone in prison is suspicious of other people’s motives. Especially for helping. So be as honest as you can: Why did you say yes to this One Parish One Prisoner experience? What motivates you? What fears or hesitations do you have? Honesty invites honesty.

A Day in the Life

One way to introduce ourselves and discover each other’s lives is to simply describe a day in your life this last week. Both the basic routines, as well as something that made your week. Or a setback. Then ask your new friend to tell you about a day in their life inside the facility. Our worlds are different in many ways at this point. Let’s learn.

Here’s a brilliant 5 minute depiction of “a day in the life” on the inside.

A Turning Point

Those leaving the underground are very aware of the need to “change” their lives. Was there a point in your story when you faced yourself in the mirror and knew something had to change? Maybe you weren’t on hard drugs or in prison, but do you have a before/after (not just when you came to faith)? What struggles did you face? Then ask your new friend if they had a moment when they knew they wanted to change.

Laughter

What makes us laugh is often layered with story about us. What made you laugh this week? Share that. Ask your friend to share a story of what made them laugh this week.

Shadows

Often people writing to those locked up share something difficult that they’ve never shared with family or friends in church. This is powerful. A chance to share past or present struggles outside the “nice” bounds of church, not be judged by someone, and model to them our own imperfect humanity. See what happens. (Here’s a prompt if you’re stuck: “What was the worst day in your life? I want to tell you about mine…”)

TECHNICAL STUFF

Make sure you address your envelopes with their iDOC number and full name, on the front. Simple envelopes and paper only—typed or handwritten. Adhesive, glitter, fancy cards, “foreign material” spills on envelopes (including bleeding ink from a rainy day) are rejected.

PHOTOS

We strongly encourage you to send photos as often as you can. Photos from the outside are gold for men and women inside . Here are the basic guidelines:

  • No more than three photos per envelope.

  • Nothing that will create a disruption to incarcerated folks: explicit substances, provocative material, images of violence, etc. 

    • Family pictures are allowed.

  • Write your friend’s LAST NAME and iDOC NUMBER on the back of each photo you stick into the envelope.

BOOKS

Sorry—we can’t mail our own used books into a facility. Not even new ones we buy new from a brick and mortar shop. We can only send brand new books, softcover, purchased online and sent directly to their prison address from the online vendor (like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell’s Books).

MONEY

A key component of our program is avoiding all the entanglements of Giver/Asker dynamics that come with money and resources. Why? So that we can create a space for strings-free relationship. For that reason we do not send money (on inmates’ accounts, food packages, phone accounts, or to girlfriends or boyfriends in need outside prison).

We will share much more, soon, about the ways your community can (and should) be preparing to use financial resources most effectively in the re-entry road ahead. There is a much larger discussion of this coming soon.

We do have a few exceptions for using some small finances to assist letters and calls:

  • Help with snail mail postage. We want to help buy stamped envelopes (postage account) periodically. Incarcerated folks purchase envelopes (stamped with postage) to write to their parish team members. Keep them supplied with these envelopes to keep the conversation going.

Click through and submit payment and you’ll get a confirmation page with the tracking number. SEND that number to your friend (or poke us: alvin@undergroundministries.org and we’ll send them that number on Connect Network so they get to it faster).

Your releasing friend might ask to receive or borrow money. They might have a good reason. A standard response to share with your incarcerated person is always, “The One Parish One Prisoner program, at this point, has us only using money for postage and on phone accounts to take your calls. In the future, we will be fundraising to take care of a lot of the obstacles facing your re-entry. That’s how the program is guiding us. Right now, it’s just about enjoying building relationship with you, free of money concerns.” That way it’s always about relationship, not resources.


Overwhelmed? We wanted to give you everything you need here. 

But just writing your first letter—like we did together at the Kickoff Orientation—is often the hardest bump for people to get over. If you can do that, you’ve begun.

ACTION STEPS THIS MONTH

  • WRITE YOUR INCARCERATED FRIEND

  • SEND A PHOTO OF YOURSELF

  • PRINT THEIR PHOTO. Put it on your refrigerator. Pray

FOR DISCUSSION

● Make sure everyone got their first letter sent out. Now share with each other: What did you say? 

● Anybody received a reply already? What did it say? 

● Encourage everybody to get over the first letter together, this week. Share your hesitations, awkward fears—then encourage each other to talk about exactly that in the first letter! 

● What positive memories might you have of a written letter earlier in your life? Did any reach you when you were in a hard place? How did that letter affect you? 

● The New Testament is maybe the only major world religion that calls letters from prison “holy scripture.” We have an epistolary faith. How might this experience of writing a letter with someone you don’t know personally give you new eyes for those letters to the people in Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, and Galatia? Can you think of other famous letters in the history of Christian and social movements?