The Cracked Acorn: Handwriting

“Then HE stooped down again and wrote in the dust.  … ”  John 8:8

Handwriting took a turn in 1714 when Henry Mill of England invented a ‘writing machine.’ It was many years later, Remington & Sons mass produced the Sholes & Glidden typewriter.

About 1975. In 1978 the New York Times converted its editorial typewriters to word processors, and Jimmy Carter was the first American president to go electronic, writing his memoirs on a word processor.

The Bible was written by hand. Letters from friends to friends and to those of interest were carefully written to convey most of time personal and important information. People of years ago did not see each other as often as we do today, blame it on the proliferation of the automobile. Today, if I want to contact someone I either use my cellphone or go to my home PC and send an e-mail.

All if this is aforementioned to get to the relevant. It was the day that I received a telephone message in my home office to call my neighbor across the street. I thought it strange that over the years, I hardly ever had this happened beyond a friendly wave while walking our dog. I dialed and instantly my neighbor’s wife answered. She thought it strange that someone had addressed a letter with their address on the front of an envelope; inside it was a letter from someone who wished to remain anonymous. The contents of the letter were to warn maybe our neighbor’s husband who is a law enforcement officer that there was another known person mentioned. It was assumed that the word was to get to her husband, a law enforcement officer that there was a person in her neighborhood that was ‘evil’ and not to be trusted. Why this was done and will there be more letters, all remains to be revealed. Time has since passed and no more letters. We could assume that the ‘person’ moved away or other situations intervened.

And when I was 12 years old, my father took me to a circus, the greatest show on earth.
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears.
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads.
And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle.
I had the feeling that something was missing.
I don’t know what, but when it was over,
I said to myself, “is that all there is to a circus?” (Peggy Lee 1920 – 2002)

Yes! Handwriting has about gone away and circuses and a lot of other things….Meanwhile the American public echoes ,”Is that all there is?” I have a mental list of things that will disappear in the coming years, say 50 years. I once thought a million dollars was something to reach for, now it is a billion dollars,,,who knows that soon it will be a trillion dollars and small countries will be bought and sold to the highest bidder. Where is a Daniel when we need him and he can tell us what the “handwriting on the wall” means to us poor citizens of the world today.You might want to read the Old Testament of Daniel 5:26-28.