Learning to Write Their Love
Men in church workshops express themselves, word by painstaking word, in an unlikely medium: the humble letter.
McKINNEY, Texas — After 26 years of marriage, Charles Batson says his wife means everything to him. He just wishes he knew how to tell her.“We’re always going in a million different directions and when we talk, it’s almost like a text message: Hey, I love you. Gotta go.” That’s not enough, he said. Not for the way he feels.
So Batson enrolled in a church workshop to learn how to write a love letter.
The course has become a surprise hit in scores of churches across the nation this fall, promoted by pastors who hope the old-fashioned letter can strengthen the frazzled modern family.
Intent on writing not only to their wives, but also to their children and their parents, more than 5,000 men have joined support groups to help one another put their feelings to paper.
The groups — led by men trained at an evangelical church here in suburban Dallas — are springing up in California, South Carolina, Oregon and Alaska; in a rural parish in Little Axe, Okla., and a mega-church in Jacksonville, Fla.; in congregations of Quakers, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and Southern Baptists.
Participants get a list of recommended adjectives, sample letters to crib from, even a CD with a 60-minute tutorial on “The Lost Art of Letter Writing.”
Still, many say the Letters From Dad program is the toughest challenge they have ever faced.
Source: LATimes.com © 2005 LA Times
Related websites (not necessarily endorsed by In The Faith):
Letters from Dad
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Filed under: Ministries, Marriage and Family
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