#VirtualRitual – Each weekday our friends from Penn, including Students, Staff, Faculty, Penn Religious Communities Council and other voices from campus will be sharing the ways their spiritual rituals have adapted while staying at home and as they connect to their spiritual communities remotely.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Today we have a post by Penn student, Cassandra Jobman C’21: 

In

April, I got a letter in the mail. Not my paper Wells Fargo bank statement that I always tell myself to cancel, or weird junk mail from an organization I never remember giving my address to, but a pretty piece of mail. One in a purple envelope and with my name in curly letters.

It

was a friend, simply updating me on her life.

And

then two weeks later, it was another pretty envelope from her, responding to the note I sent back.

If

you know me, you probably know just how awful I am at responding to messages. I let them sit unread for days, weeks, until they rot and I’m too scared to open them. So, when I found myself in a consistent correspondence with a distant friend, it was new (and shocking) for me.

I

am the *ashamed* queen of procrastination when it comes to communication, but there is something compelling about letter writing. Something about feeling pen hit paper and then letting it disappear into the blue abyss of a mailbox. Something that makes me extremely honest and vulnerable. Something that makes me reflect and think.

In

the past few months, I started sending more letters to more people. I consider it my own ritual that makes me sit and focus and be still.

(So,

if I’ve been ignoring your message, please write me a letter. I promise I’ll respond.)”