school English teacher-turned fi ction author. She made us write in our journals every day of our junior year. If we chose to share what we had written with the class, the nonjudgmental response would always be the same: “T ank you for sharing.” T ose words met our antsy attempts to express ourselves like the reassuring voice of the preacher off ering words of absolution. T ough I am a writer, I must confess that I don’t
oſt en think about the ways my everyday writing of emails, reports and newsletters helps me to live life abundantly in relationship to God and others. I’m grate- ful for modern communications, but I wonder if, along the way, we have lost the art of relational writing. If our everyday writing is to serve not only the task
at hand but also the relationships in our lives, we may need to reconsider how we embrace our digital lives. We may need to slow down. We may need to lay aside our desires for immediate gratifi cation and control. We may need to write diff erently. I’m still learning how to write. It’s a way of life that
oſt en eludes my best eff orts to grasp the humility and patience it requires. I suspect this is a frustrating feature of all vocations. Like Jacob and the angel (Genesis 32:22-31), answering the call of a vocation is something of a wrestling match: you struggle and struggle with it until fi nally it blesses you with a limp.
Writing as a calling Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann is on to something spiritually profound when he laments that we have all become practitioners of memos. Immersed in what he has elsewhere called a “technological con- sumerism,” we write to other people to inform, orga- nize, manage and control. Of course this is understandable. Much of the
advances in digital media have aimed to make com- munication more effi cient and more productive. But relationships built on effi ciency and productivity have limits. Writing doesn’t have to be mere manipulation of
data. Our Lutheran tradition off ers the digital age a diff erent way of approaching our work with and for others in the world. It begins with that watery entrance into God’s family that we call baptism. It continues as a lifelong eff ort to hear where God is calling us to give ourselves away. It’s these callings to give ourselves away that we call vocations. Both the apostle Paul and Martin Luther were mas-
ters of the art of writing letters. Hearing Paul’s letters read every Sunday, I’m struck
A quick reference guide for writing letters
• Write with someone in mind. Oſt en in our digital writing we don’t really know to whom we’re
• Begin and end well. Since writing beyond memos is ultimately about relationships, have a
writing. Before you start writing, take a moment to visualize a person who will read your written work. If possible, close your eyes and visualize their face. Imagine they are there in front of you. T is can be an actual person in the case of an email or a newsletter, or an imagined person in the case of social media.
• Try new genres. Most of us have limited reper- toires when it comes to our writing. T ere are weeks
clear beginning and end—a mount and a dismount. Increasingly communication experts can track how long readers spend on a Web page or reading an email. Usually you have just seconds to capture their attention. T is makes clear, compelling begin- nings and endings all the more important.
• Practice. Oh come on, you knew this was com- ing. Writing is hard, at times laborious and even
where email is the only writing I do—and it shows. Mix up your mundane, everyday writing with per- sonal letters, tweets, thank-you notes, prayers, etc. T e more relational and expressive genres will likely creep into the other areas—an added benefi t.
• Recruit an editor. Since writing beyond memos is about our relationships and bridging the space
painful. It’s a craſt . No matter how good or bad your writing is now, it will benefi t from attentive practice.
between each of us, few things can do more to help your writing than recruiting a friend to serve as an editor. T ere is always a signifi cant gap between what we think we’ve communicated and what we have actually communicated. Editors help us encounter that gap honestly so we can get through to one another.
Timothy K. Snyder
Author bio: Snyder is adjunct instructor of theology and spiritual- ity at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, and director of education at Faith Lutheran
Church, Cambridge, Mass. February 2015 33
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