I appreciate my Post Office Box 205 (P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816), it connects me with many wonderful people including  Barbara Heisler, a Mennonite pastor from a small town in Pennsylvania. Here was one of the precious messages I got today in my Post Office Box, now a cherished part of my life and a daily sacrament for me.

When I got the P.O. Box, I really had no idea what would come into it, I stop there every day now, there is always something for me that is joyous, uplifting and special. What a gift.

People from all over the country write me to say hello, share their thoughts, muse about the world and often, to thank me for the blog, which is humbling and affirming and very important to me and to Maria. I get a 1,000 messages a day sometimes online, but most of the special messages I receive come in my P.O. Box, a surprise, given that many people thought the form of the paper letter was dead. It is not, a wonderful surprise to me.

Pastor Heisler is 79 years old, she sent me a check for $75 as a voluntary payment for the blog.  “I read it every day,” she wrote, “Iove the photos, am amazed with the wisdom you offer on such themes as aging, death, love, community, animals, politics, and more. Also the photos are great.”

I love the idea I see in the letters, good people sitting down in the morning to read the blog, drinking coffee, musing about the world, just like me.

I work alone and I don’t know most of the people who read my blog, it means so much to me to get a letter like this, I am astonished by the blog, it is a miracle to me.

Barbara Heisler is a poet, I will write her to ask to see some of her poems. “I am a lover of the natural world and God,” she wrote. “Thanks for your work. It helps make a better world.”

Thanks for our message, Pastor Heisler, for your payment and for taking the trouble to write me,  it makes my life better, it lifts my heart and soul.