Episode #69: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 2 - to Hannah

Jan,16 2026

<-#68: Letters of Myriam Chapter 1 - Fragments#70: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 3 - To Daniel ->

To my daughter Hannah - April 1959

My dearest girl,

I am writing because our voices have grown sharp with each other, and I do not recognize us when we shout. Words on paper are slower; they do not interrupt.

You said last week that the Scripture must be kept like a fence around a garden. I understand the wish for a fence. Wind frightens people who have planted something precious.

But I remember another line, the one where the disciples complained that the grain was being plucked on the Sabbath, and Christ answered about mercy. I am not quoting to correct you. I am quoting because I cannot forget the way He spoke to frightened men.

You have always been braver than I was at your age. Perhaps bravery sometimes dresses itself as certainty.

I worry that you are carrying the book the way a soldier carries a shield, not the way a child carries a lamp. Lamps shake. Shields do not.

When you were small, you asked why Christopher laughed so often. I told you it was because he did not believe God was nervous. I still believe that.

I do not ask you to loosen your grip on what you love. I only ask you to feel whether it is the grip of holding or the grip of fear.

You said on Sunday that rules keep us clean. I thought of the woman who touched Christ's cloak and was not sent away to wash first. I thought of how untidy that miracle must have looked to the careful.

Perhaps I am too gentle. Perhaps mothers grow softer as their daughters grow harder. If so, forgive me that weakness.

I watch you teach your own children, and I see such patience in your hands. Yet when the talk turns to doctrine, your shoulders rise as if you are expecting stones.

No one here is throwing them.

I am not asking you to change your faith. I am asking you to leave a small space inside it where people can breathe. Even the temple had windows.

Your father says I should not write this letter. He fears it will only start another storm. But storms also clear the air, and I would rather risk weather than silence.

I love you more than the books, more than the arguments that have grown around them like vines. I hope you know that even when my voice fails to show it.

Come for supper when you can. I will make the soup you liked as a girl, and we will speak of ordinary things until the sharpness rests.

Your mother,

Myriam

<-#68: Letters of Myriam Chapter 1 - Fragments#70: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 3 - To Daniel ->