The Desk
The Letter with an Unsealed Return
Twelve pages of earnest spiritual counsel, accompanied by the unsealed return envelope that allowed a friend to decline them.
On the desk
In The Letter Returned Unopened, a practitioner realizes at the post office counter that her twelve pages of spiritual advice leave her grieving friend no graceful way to say no. She tucks a stamped, self-addressed envelope inside with its flap left unsealed. Four weeks later, the envelope comes home.
Note enclosed with the twelve pages
I am sending these pages because I hope they might be a steadiness in a hard season. I am enclosing a stamped envelope addressed back to my own kitchen, with the flap unsealed, so that saying “no thank you” does not have to tear anything between us.
Penciled on the first page when it returned
Not mine to carry.