The Joy of Letter Writing

August 2, 2016August 2, 2016 carolannmccarthy6 Comments

When was the last time you wrote a personal letter for no reason other than to let a friend or relative know you were thinking of them? I wrote two letters a few hours ago. This is a daily ritual with me. It feels great to take my mind off my own life and focus on the life of someone else. I have my regular pen friends, but I also enjoy sending letters off to relatives and local friends, people I like who I don’t have the opportunity to see often or ever!

I enjoy pausing in my busy day to reflect on life for if I go, go, go and never stop life becomes one long “to do” list offering me no chance to ponder and appreciate those very things that I’m doing. I double my fun by “doing” things and then “reflecting” on those things. Lord Byron (one of my “dead friends”) had it right when he said, “A life without reflection is a sad affair.” I think reflection is important. It gives us a chance to stop and relax in between activities.

I could reflect and keep the reflections to myself, but I truly believe sharing doubles the joy, so I share my reflections in the letters I write to my pen friends. My pen friends then share their reflections with me. It’s a wonderful cycle.

I know I could use the telephone as my way to reach out to others, but I might call at an inconvenient time for my friend. Just because I’m in the mood to share doesn’t mean my friend has the time just then. A letter is polite. It arrives, but can wait to be read at whatever time is convenient. It can also be kept and read again and again and again. A letter is lasting. Why would someone want to reread a letter you ask? Well, if we write letters full of kind thoughts, compliments and beautiful ideas our friends might like to reread our letters when they need a lift.

Besides all this, there’s art involved in letter writing, not only the personal art of our handwriting, but also the opportunity for us to enjoy a little art play as we create our stationery. Creativity is very therapeutic and good for the soul. There are plenty of machine-made items in the world today but how many handmade articles do you encounter daily? A hand written letter will always stand out because not only is it personal, and handmade, but it is also quite rare in these modern days.

I love writing letters but I get equal pleasure from receiving letters like this one from my pen friend Sarah in Viroqua, Wisconsin. With lots of pen friends the whole world becomes your friendly neighborhood. As you write to all sorts of people with all sorts of interests and experiences your life is enriched.

My pen friend Sarah is a real health food person. She shares all sorts of healthful recipes with me and whether or not I make these things I enjoy reading about them – things like her snacks of yogurt with carob powder and sorghum. Sarah eats sorghum morning and night. She says it digests slowly and is a good fuel source. Did you ever eat sorghum?

Sarah buys grass fed beef hot dogs, chops up 2 eggs right out of the shell, adds celery seed with a liberal pad of butter, some spinach, parsley or cilantro, and cooks it all up to create a lunch she loves. Well, it’s not exactly a lunch I would love, but I enjoy the subject of food and discussing it in letters is interesting to me. Would you find this subject interesting too?

Sarah said she doesn’t eat much bread but if she does indulge it has to be Sprouted Organic Ancient Grains – The Queen’s Khorasan. Ever hear of it? I hadn’t. It’s made with sprouted khorasan wheat, an ancient grain that entertained Egyptian royalty more than 5,000 years ago. Who would know? Pen friends teach me all sorts of things about food and about many other subjects as well.

I may not be able to hop on a plane and travel to far off places, but because I have pen friends in those far off places it’s easy for me to enjoy virtual outings whenever these friends write to me sharing their world. One such special friend is Joanna who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. Besides her beautiful handwriting and her Scottish news I love to see the stamps on her envelopes.

Joanna also shares picture postcards from her travels. These post cards always contain lovely descriptions and lots of background information. I could just read The New York Times travel section (which I do read) or National Geographic, but there’s something special in getting a friend’s personal reaction to a place. Do you recognize the picture above? It’s a picture of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Joanna visited it recently and found it interesting that in any other Renaissance building most people would spend hours admiring the painted ceilings, the immense collection of classical sculptures and the portraits of European monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries, but she noticed no one was paying any attention to any of those features at the Uffizi Gallery because they were too busy looking at the other paintings. I too love art and my pen friends help me see things I would otherwise not have a chance to see.

Did I just say I love art? Yes I did, all kinds of art, so you can see why I enjoy finding creative letter envelopes in my mailbox. This one is from my pen friend Kathy who lives in York, Pennsylvania. Kathy loves cats. She often draws a cat on her letter envelope among other things). I love seeing her art work. She especially loves her cat Alice, but Kathy loves lots of good things that I also appreciate, especially her love of classical music and singing in a choir.

No, this isn’t Kathy’s Alice, but I wonder if Kathy would dress Alice up in this way. Kathy tells me there was a “dress up your pet contest” and this cat pictured was a winner. I wonder if Alice would put up with a hat and earrings. My dog would never have heard of such a thing. But to each his own. I have some catnip in my garden and I’m planning to send it to Alice via Kathy. I never had a cat, but I do love animals, and any friend of Kathy’s is a friend of mine, a friend deserving of a little present now and then.

Letters are wonderful. I can’t imagine living without them. Some letters are serious and others are whimsical. Some letters educate and others just share simple pleasures. Letters add so much to my life and I know they would add as much to your life too.

I hope you are a letter writer. I hope you have lots of lovely pen friends as I do. I hope you enjoy art play creating your very own stationery. It’s all so good! The Art of Letter Writing is not a lost art. It still exists. All it needs is You! Write your friends and relatives. Join The Letter Exchange if you need a few new interesting pen friends. Leave a comment on this post. I’d love to hear from you myself.

Just Write!

It’s not just a Walk in the Park

October 26, 2015October 27, 2015 carolannmccarthy5 Comments

Work and worry are sturdy weeds, but joy requires cultivation. How and when do you cultivate joy? I cultivate much of my joy when walking through nature. It’s here with great beauty all around me that I’m able to think positively and creatively.

Nothing comes from nothing you know. We have to construct our own unique vision of a delightful life before we can make that life happen. This takes imagination, effort, and a certain amount of time uncluttered by work-a-day concerns. A stroll in nature provides the perfect opportunity for creative thought.

As we turn our eyes to behold the sights and sounds of nature, all that our Creator designed for us, we look away from sordid surroundings, from lack of beauty, from the imperfections in ourselves and those around us and with a little faith-vision we begin to see new possibilities for our lives.

Albert Einstein said, “The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty and truth.” What are your ideals? What do you imagine for your life? We only have so much time on earth to live these ideals so if we’re not thinking about them constantly, if we’re letting the busyness of daily life distract us, we will forget to have and do the very things that matter to us most.

Though it’s important to let our minds relax and ramble freely while walking in nature I find it helpful to have one particular subject I return to over and over in between the ramblings. That subject might be trying to find more time for reading in the course of a day or dreaming up a new ritual for afternoon tea or finding a better system for cleaning the closets. It could be anything, but if I limit my conscious thought to that one particular subject there’s a good chance I’ll have some concrete new ideas in place by the end of my walk.

The rest and recreation we need is the kind which actually recreates.

We can use our leisure to do all sorts of things, but to cultivate joy we must be sure those things have meaning to us. Cultivating joy requires creation, creation requires reflection and reflection requires solitude. Lord Byron, one of my “dead friends” said, “A life without reflection is a sad affair” and that’s because without reflection we can’t cultivate joy.

Besides being a chance to look into ourselves cultivating joy, studies show that a walk in nature helps us feel physically healthier, better about ourselves in general and just plain happier. You’d think a walk would make us feel more tired, but the reality is opposite. Exercise actually increases energy.

Sometimes on my walk I like to pause for a while in a nice spot reading a book, a book inspiring new ideas, a book like Voluntary Simplicity, by Duane Elgin. Duane spent much of his life in the East and became very interested in harmonious and purposeful living. In his book he quotes Richard Gregg who was a student of Gandhi’s teaching and who wrote in 1936…

“Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of another… the degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself.”

Though we have all sorts of our own thoughts to explore and develop it’s important to include new ideas into the mix. Reading good books anywhere, any time is an enriching experience so why not read in nature surrounded by so much beauty?

You have to find places where you recognize yourself.

It seems to me we’re happiest when we’re surrounded by people and places that are in sync with us. Where would those places be for you? I’m most comfortable in coffee shops writing letters, in art museums, in restaurants with white table cloths and in nature. To create the life you’ve always dreamed of you must know where you should and shouldn’t be spending most of your time. A daily walk in nature is a ritual I created for myself, one that serves me well. Maybe it would serve you well too.

“Romanticism is beauty without bounds — the beautiful infinite.” —Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825)

I’m a Romantic and all Romantics love and need nature. I’m also a music lover and some say music is the most romantic of all the arts. For me music and nature go hand in hand so I love bringing the music of Romantic composers along with me on my nature walks. Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” or Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” make for lovely accompaniments to my visual pleasure. Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak… there are so many composers who were as influenced and inspired by nature as I am, taking their music along with me doubles the joy.. What would a movie be without a soundtrack? A walk benefits from a soundtrack too.

If you’re a Romantic like me you owe it to yourself to find ways to live more romantically every day. It’s easier than you think. Regardless of your time or budget you can walk along and dream up all sorts of rituals for yourself, rituals like celebrating your own special days (I have my weekly Country Inn Days), indulging in breakfast in bed, picnics and other delights, or simply prioritizing time for romance. Barbara Taylor Bradford wrote a book called “Living Romantically Every Day” and it’s filled with ideas you can make your own as you walk along in nature. That walk is a romantic experience in itself. You don’t need to be in places like Paris, Rome, Boston or San Francisco in order to live and be inspired romantically. Nature is everywhere and its beauty has power.

I do enjoy Romantic cities with their vivid enduring images; white towns surrounding an elm-shaped green; mellowed brick and graying stone; narrow cobbled streets along a tangy waterfront, ancient architecture, but I can be equally inspired by the simple beauty of nature in my very own town and you probably have lots of beautiful nature in and around your town too. Take advantage of it.

No matter how good you feel before a walk in nature you’ll feel even better after one. And if you’re feeling low there’s nothing like the inspiration and comfort you’ll find in God’s great out-of-doors. It’s impossible for any alert person to stroll along a lake or saunter through the woods without something magical happening to their spirit.

Why do you suppose there is so much variety in the beauty of nature? Why aren’t all the trees the same? Behind all philosophy and religion there is one thing for certain; the world and everything in it exists for some purpose. We’re here for some purpose too and to feel our happiest we must love our life and believe it has significance, but we can’t love what we don’t really know. Socrates said, “Know thyself” and Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.”

The hard work we do doesn’t get us down, its the work and activity we do which doesn’t connect to our true purpose, to our spirit. Doing the wrong things drain us. By taking time out each and every day to know ourselves better we can keep our lives on track and when we take a walk in nature noticing every beautiful thing God created with its intelligence and purpose, well, I think that beauty inspires us to become the artists of our own lives, cultivating joy, and working to create the life we imagine for ourselves.

So it’s not JUST a walk in the park. That walk is a GREAT activity. It can do a lot for our physical, intellectual and spiritual lives. It can even be a social activity if we walk with a friend, but shhhhhhhhhhhhh. . .

SILENCE IS GOLDEN.

Don’t know what you think? Try writing a letter.

November 11, 2013July 8, 2015 carolannmccarthyLeave a comment

“I don’t know what I think until I see what I write.” Those are the words of Flannery O’Connor, the American writer and essayist. As backwards as this idea might seem, I feel exactly the same way each morning when I sit down to write my first letter of the day.

There I am with my first cup of coffee and the letter I plan to answer. My mind is still rather blank after a good night’s sleep. The day hasn’t yet had its chance to invade my thoughts, but, as I read through my friend’s letter, ideas begin to flow. That letter I’m answering may tell me a story of love, report a discovery, or describe a challenge, and reading of such things will then conjure up my own similar experiences – or lack of them – and such reflections will start my mental ball rolling.

Once my thoughts are activated, it’s not long before my creativity kicks in and my letter response is off and running. Where it ends up is anyone’s guess!

Sark, in her book “Succulent Wild Woman” writes, “A story can travel without you and inspire many. The tiniest story in your life can deeply touch another. You cannot know the effect your story might have.”

If you keep this idea in mind when you write letters, your writing will become more than a simple free-time activity: It will become a way you can make this world a better place just by being you and sharing the best parts of yourself – your ideas, enthusiasm, faith, hope, compassion, lessons learned, and things loved.

Sark also says, “Creativity thrives in solitude – not isolation. As creative women we need community.” I suggest women aren’t the only ones who need community either. Everyone needs community.

No man is an island. Letter writing is a wonderful activity because though we may be enjoying the peaceful, luscious solitude of our home or the pleasure of our own table in a crowded coffee shop we’re alone in one way, but we’re not entirely alone. We have the companionship of our letter friend.

My best intellectual and/or creative conversations seldom happen while chatting with friends in person, even though I’m lucky to have many intelligent, creative friends. Maybe it’s just me, but when I get together with friends it’s more like a party, and conversations tend to stay light and festive.

In-person friends are forever jumping into each other’s thoughts with asides and comments. The topic is constantly changing. It’s great fun, but entirely different from conversations in letters. In letters there are no interruptions and the tone often becomes more serious and thoughtful.

In writing a letter, one has the chance to form all thoughts slowly and carefully, getting them all out before a word is written in reply. Therefore these written thoughts have a chance to develop more completely. By the same token, our letter friend has plenty of time to digest and reflect upon our words before responding to them.

Modern life and modern communication does not encourage these slow, thoughtful exchanges, and this is a real shame, for most people don’t even know what they’re missing. As with so many things, one must experience good letter conversations in order to understand how they can enrich our lives.

If you are a thoughtful person who enjoys shared reflection, I would think you’d love letters and letter writing, for, with the right correspondents conversations will occur that add depth to your intellectual life. Good letters tell stories. They describe comings and goings, explore feelings, and capture and preserve personal essence.

Lord_Byron_coloured_drawing — Lord Byron

Letter writing helps us reflect upon and examine our stories and the stories of others, something busy modern life does not encourage us to do. Reflection is good. Shared reflection is even better. It’s important. Lord Byron wrote, “A life without reflection is a sad affair.” I agree. Don’t you?

So reflect upon your story, then write lots of letters sharing your most outstanding personal tidbits. You will tingle with awareness and eagerly await letter responses from your pen friends. You will feel like a real writer – and for good reason. You will be one!

“A story is a medicine that greases and hoists the pulleys, shows us the way out, down, in and around, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, doors which lead us to our own knowing.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estes American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst

Take Joy

December 28, 2012December 28, 2012 carolannmccarthy

This is the day which the Lord hath made

we will rejoice and be glad in it

With these words the psalmist greeted the dawning of a day in the spirit of new adventure. I direct a children’s church choir and here they are.

The kids and I sing these words frequently as we lead our congregation in song, but I wonder how many people really give much thought to what we’re all singing. How many reflect on what the words mean?

To reflect: to think deeply, to consider. My “dead friend” Lord Byron said “A life without reflection is a sad affair”. I so agree. That’s probably why I love letter writing and blogging so much. Writing about ideas helps me focus on them and focusing on wise and positive ideas helps me feel somewhat wise and definitely more positive.

So what’s that psalmist trying to tell us? I think he’s saying we should be mindful that life is amazing, a precious gift not to be taken for granted. We shouldn’t waste the day on silly things, and the modern world is full of silly things. Instead we should be developing our talents and appreciations, turning them into healthy passions and then sharing ourselves with others any way we can. It’s only then that I think we can feel fully alive.

Work and worry are sturdy weeds, but joy requires cultivation. This day and every day we should rejoice in the gift of life and take full advantage of it. Use the day to cultivate our joy and then share the joy we cultivate. When we give good things come back to us.

What’s your purpose for living? Mine is threefold: to try to know God, to be of service to others and to do my work with joy. As I work at these things on this day the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it.

A powerful difference in living results when we approach our days, our tasks, our loved ones and acquaintances rejoicing in them, and expecting the best of them.

Take Joy