THE ENVELOPES STAMPED “religious material” come bundled with bills, catalogues, and mailers, arriving in my rural post office box once or twice a month. In handwriting large or small, blocky or scrawled—and once in a magnificent cursive that looked like it could grace an illuminated manuscript—prisoners from around the country write to me. Among stories of grief and regret, violence and hope, I see again and again the radiating coal of one burning question: How can I quiet my mind?
This kind of epistolary relationship is hopelessly antiquated. As billions of text messages whiz back and forth across’s and ’s, how they plow through margins using every inch of paper real estate, the feathery touch of their ink against the page. Handwriting is an embodied form of communication, reflecting a human being, a mind. Though we will never speak to each other, I can imagine their voices through this paper that still holds traces of their DNA, and now mine.
