Saturday, January 25, 2020

Pros and Cons of the Reformation

Pros and Cons of the Reformation Pros and cons of the reformation The middle of the 1400s was period of dramatic change, marked with end of the age of chivalry as new forms of weapon were produced and a utilization of gunpowder transformed the traditional concept of knights in shining armor. Consequentially, the hierarchy of the nobility became unstable, their supremacy no longer marked by their ability to bear arms and defend their homeland. Within the same period, the supremacy of the upper-class took another blow when the printing press was invented, allowing more of the population to acquire the written word, now attainable and affordable. However, with these new developments into the proceeding centuries, the availability of copies of the Holy Bible and an increase in Church sandal led to an age of extreme superstition. In order to confront these issues and cope with the changing world, figures Martin Luther and John Calvin took noteworthy action within what is now known as the Protestant Reformation. Peaking in the 1500s, an overzealous church showed prominent internal problems. First, with the new translations of Scripture available, people began to take the Bible seriously again. However, bad translations or interpretations, such as in the case of Joshua slaughtering the Canaanites, made some readers believe that that would be allowable in their time as well (Joshua 10:40). Due to this ____, the Church began to think that the text was too dangerous and full of misunderstanding, necessitating a control of information given to the masses. Along those lines, the papacy decided that, as successors to Peter, no one would have the authority to question their authority since they have been divinely appointed. Since their power presumably comes from a special connection to God, authorities within the church used their positions to abuse that power. The most noticeable abuses of power were in not keeping with the code of the religious position, such as forgoing chastity in order to have ___ sexual relations, or placing relatives into positions of power. The most infamous corruption of this time was the Church stealing patrons’ money through indulgences, a remission of punishments for sins and forgiveness of its guilt through payment. Tetzel’s Sermon pg19 Church had religious, cultural, political, and economic power â€Å"The pope can do all things God can do.† Nicolaus de Tudeschis[1386-1445], famous Benedictine canonist and abbot,in â€Å"Commentaria† (lvi, 34) Therefore, in this time, religious faithful had a conception that God can be bribed for redemption. For fear of eternal damnation, people paid money to the Church in exchange for absolution of their sins, or those of their relatives, allowing entry into Heaven. Based on an idea similar to â€Å"Jesus offering Himself to appease His angry father,† the Church cashed in on the surplus of sins in their communities (Ranasinghe). However, with that thought, Martin Luther emerged with a counter argument, proposing that the death of Jesus is worth infinitely more than any human sin, so, with His supreme offering, the Church should not need any of the congregation’s money involved. In 1517, Luther wrote a letter to Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg, which included a copy of his 95 Theses, protests against clerical abuses of power such as the practice of indulgences. In the letter, Luther suggests that this sale of reconciliation and buying one’s way out of â€Å"all punishment and guilt† must have occurred without Albert’s â€Å"knowledge and consent,† hoping that reform may come from within the Church (26; 27). Perhaps starting the Protestant Reformation with his Theses, Luther’s small attempts at reforming the church quickly exploded into a revolution out of his control. In addition to challenging the church’s practice of selling indulgences, Luther proposed that Biblical Scripture should become its own sole authority, not determined by a church official such as the pope. Therefore, faith became more important than good works, advising that humans cannot become good people or pleasing in the eyes of the Lord by performing virtuous actions. Rather, Luther created a new view of God entirely, rather than the old church’s blasphemous conception of one that can be bribed. According to Luther, humans are subordinate to an angry God, due to Original Sin. Only able to be saved by God’s grace, the core of human sinfulness comes from the natural seeking of happiness, a sure sign of human depravity. Since trying to construct our own happiness and not turning to God, the only way to become a virtuous person is to realize that you are not capable of virtue and thereby dependent on God alone. Living on earth, children of God must observe human laws but know that they can never be just or worthy in His eyes. Crying out from the depths of human depravity, humans cannot know themselves as anything other than sinners ruled by their passions and vices. Both in the Bible and in the writings of Augustine, Luther agrees Christ would have â€Å"died in vain† if man were capable of virtue (Galatians 2:21). In order to remind ourselves of our sinfulness, the purpose of human laws and rulers is to make it impossible to maintain a clear conscience. Making humans feel guilty and aware of their own wickedness, Luther wanted to keep the faithful away from the dangerous illusion that they can live apart from God and remind them of how unworthy they are, so in no way capable of buying their way into Heaven. While Luther was a reformer, his ideas quickly had a life of their own, exploding and creating a revolutionary situation. People had uncontrollably angry reactions against the excesses of the Church, breaking the stained glass and destroying anything that spoke merely of the beauty of God. Thus, John Calvin constructed a new system out of the explosion, similarly whitewashing walls of the churchs and putting some pieces back together, transforming protestant Christianity into a reformed church based upon ideas of Luther. Calvin’s teachings were slightly different from Luther’s but maintained the same Protestant thought. He taught that human existence depends on God, predisposing an existence of a Creator and implying that the world is not of our own making. Therefore, under an omnipotent God, Calvin believed in predestination, a â€Å"doctrine† that God had pre-established and divinely ordered everything and that nothing, except perhaps God, can change it. Consequently, if a man is considered a good person, it is because he has been selected, out of everyone, by God to be good. Similarly, if he had been chosen to go to Hell, he is able to choose how to get there, but he cannot turn around and choose God, since God must choose him, a ___ called irresistible grace. Unable to deny or resist God’s Will, chosen or not, God’s foreknowledge also implies a state of limited atonement, where not all were â€Å"created on equal terms† and that Jesus died for the select few, not the many (219; 220). Pg 213-254 Good works are an evidence of faith and chosen-ness, works + faith = chosen (opp. Luther) We are unable to know the will of God; human curiosity, questioning is wicked â€Å"let us abstain from the search of knowledge , to which it is foolish as well as perilous and even fatal to aspire† (217) Church decides what is in the Bible, so turn to the Church for answers Luther doesn’t believe you need church, you can read Scripture for yourself Calvin: Scripture has authority, exists prior to the church (in the beginning was the word†¦and the word was with god) Church doesn’t form scripture, scripture forms the church, continually educates it Script. Is timeless, story progresses, conception of God gets increasingly sophisticated as people grow in faith, over lifetime Continually refined over course of history Scripture is an illustration, not a divine work†¦it contains divine Word, but the object itself isn’t divine. Words point beyond itself, reminder of something more important but not sacred itself (meaning > words) Pros of their actions Free thought, authority of word called into question Think for themselves now, interpret (Bible loses sacredness) Luther – believed that Bible has meaning that should be available to/understood by any intelligible person Calvin – scripture = interaction between human and mind of God through written text, interpretation allowed since word isn’t divine/only represents divine Set stage for future ages of reason, challenging authority Lessened power of the corrupt within the church Shut down monastaries, suspicious of stealing money, friars getting into mischief at nunneries (brothels) – Luther allowed priests/nuns to marry World changing view: nothing special about priests, mass (can be meaningful but not literal and blasphemous) Stopped the stealing of money, exposed the scandal of indulgences Patience for change – don’t cause a scandal with brash actions, restrain/reformation is exploding Calvin: human improvement is possible through divinely established institutions (scripture) Connects state, human community – live according to deeper understanding of word of God Cons Caused many wars, deaths (30 years’ war) Multitude of Protestant denominations that don’t agree on interpretations Luther picking and choosing what he wanted them to read Anti-semitism, pg 137-142 Pg. 140: sharp mercy like a physician Jews are source of lies, stubborn in scorn/contempt Pg. 66, September Bible/Luther’s preface Opposed to James’ Epistle†¦he chooses what’s good/isn’t Making sure they read it through his eyes More interested in OT, Gospel of John in NT Leave out stories of works, preachings Just wants Jesus, commitment to Word of God, not to His works/miracles (faith > works) Pro: Jesus also didn’t want people just following Him for his miracles Luther, not interested in humanity of Jesus. Humanity is inherently evil, selfish We’re all sinners in the hands of an angry God People think that bible in infallible Problem of the bible Old church was afraid people would understand/misinterpret parts of the bible (Solomon’s 700 wives) Luther insists that it is the exact word of God, not interpretations/metaphors â€Å"Proper christian attitude toward authority† We’re meant to suffer – state should contain our appetites, desires, manage our human sinfulness We can’t know ourselves, since we’re too sinful to know Rulers can know, mold us because they’re ordained Punishment, suffering makes us more virtuous, obedient à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚   more humble Break you to reshape you, they know what’s good for us Trapped by form of reasoning, trying to control spiritual things by making them objects we can control Symptomatic of fallen-ness of humans Christians are free in one sense but slaves in another â€Å"mouths are gagged, soul is free† Tension with the problem of slavery – page 117 It’s okay because it’s in the Bible (Abraham) – â€Å"carnal† problem, soul is still free/Christian liberty Why we need to be ruled = make us unhappy, kill the illusion that we can be happy without God = only through suffering do we become virtuous A good ruler is a wicked ruler Show us how fallen, depraved, sinful our nature of humanity is No definite conclusion, a lot of good but a lot of monstrous evil as well Happiness understood in terms of unhappiness Unhappier we are, happier we can be Paradox: still seeking happiness by being unhappy Viscous cycle, divided against ourselves: I am a sinner, I don’t expect to be saved so I will be saved Understandings of God Old church: angry god that can be bribed with indulgences, not good works or faith Luther: angry god, focus on condemnation (like in the OT), God is merciless, can’t change destiny of our human sinfulness Erasmus: loving, forgiveness, humor, humility; human foolishness We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty Pope Leo XIII Encyclical Letter of June 20, 1894 â€Å"Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God,† (1 Nephi 13:28). The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, he is Jesus Christ himself, hidden under the veil of flesh. Catholic National July 1895. (Ranasinghe 1/28/14) http://www.trueorthodoxy.org/heretics_roman_catholics_pope_as_christ.shtml

Friday, January 17, 2020

British Poetry

Restraint, whether in diction, image, theme, or meter can be used as expressively in poetry as bombastic meter or jarring images and complex diction. In some cases, a muted approach toward the formal expression of a poetic theme allows a poet to convey a sense of magnitude and urgency which one might not expect from a subdued or highly-controlled technique. However, British poets of the post-war generation such as Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, and Derek Walcott exemplify the use of an aesthetic which makes effective use of a subdued and muted idiom.Their example is illustrative if not definitive of this tendency as applies to much of British poetry composed after the world wars. One interesting questions as pertains to these four poets is whether the impulse behind each of the poets' delving into muted understatement is similar or whether each poet sought for disparate reasons a similar style. For Hughes, a quality of stillness and contemplative quietness pervades most of his work, from his first published title â€Å"Hawk in the Rain† through his famous cycle of myth-driven poems â€Å"Crow† and beyond.In â€Å"Crow's First Lesson,† Hughes drives a complex theme (the cosmic nature of love and its role in the creation of the universe) against a linguistic pallette of utter simplicity. The words are delivered in the cadence of a children's story or a school primer:†God tried to teach Crow how to talk. /'Love,' said God. ‘Say, Love. ‘/Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea/And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth. † Here there is a conspicuous absence of complex word-construction or even complex thought associations.In addition to the sing-song cadence and the child-like sentence structure, the images of the poem are those of simple construction: a god, a crow, a shark, a sea. No specific qualities are probed or explored for any of the poem's elements; there is no subjective reaction to the inne r-elements of the poem by the poet, there is no overt confessional element. The muted, simplified construction persists throughout the poem, even through the poem's most complex (penultimate) stanza:And Crow retched again, before God could stop him. And woman's vulva dropped over man's neck and tightened. The two struggled together on the grass. God struggled to part them, cursed, wept– At this point the poem can be said to have progressed out of its childlike facade and into its more difficultly explicated themes regarding cosmic creation, sex, love, and the relationship between men and women, and also men and women and God.The most obvious reason for Hughes' use of a muted, simplified construction in â€Å"Crow's First Lesson† is to forward the sense of new-beginnings. As though the reader is being instructed in the fundamentals of creation and (Creation) as he or she encounters the poems in â€Å"Crow. † The secondary reason for Hughes' use of poetic restrain t in â€Å"Crow† is to convey a sense of sacred respect and grief. These latter qualities may emanate form his personal experience as Hughes' biography, as is well known, is one which contains much personal suffering and grief.Hughes attains a nobility in the surface of the poem which masks the faces of the grotesque which lie just beneath and are most accessible in the poem's closing stanzas. In this way, the construction of the poem expresses Hughes cosmic vision of a universe of â€Å"laws† and â€Å"logic† which masks, just beneath, a procession of myth and archetypal realities which to human conscious perception are often terrifying and grotesque. Similarly, in Derek Walcott's â€Å"The Sea is History† a muted and highly controlled technique lends the poem a dignified and sacred air.Walcott's desire in this poem is to present the reader with a poem which offers as many shifting images as the sea itself while simultaneously preserving the rhythmic eas e of the sea's sounds and motion and also preserving a feeling of entering greater and greater depth as if the reader is being led into the sea and its pacific, hypnotic procession of images. Unlike Hughes, whose main emotive impulse in â€Å"Crow's First Lesson† is one of cathartic grief, Walcott's poem flows with a sense of grandeur and history.It is a far less personal poem than Hughes' in some ways, but in a many ways it is also more deeply personal as a confession of personal vision. Like Hughes, Walcott is ultimately concerned in this poem with a Creation myth: and in the salt chuckle of rocks with their sea pools, there was the sound like a rumour without any echo of History, really beginning. However, Walcott's poem traces back from the modern to the ancient past of time's beginning (leading the reader â€Å"deeper and deeper†) with little sense of grief or catastrophe. Instead, the pervading impulse of the poem is one of embracement.And it is necessary for the poem to mimic in sound and form its central image, the sea, in order for the thematic ideas of the poem, that history binds all times in a single flowing â€Å"sea† of being, to be expressed. Again, both Hughes and Walcott have nurtured a quiet and contemplative idiom in many ways as an homage to and symbol of their hoped-for connection with nature. The muted, contemplative qualities of these poems is an indication of the poets' desire to enter into the same quiet creativity that is often displayed in nature, and also to show reverence for the restraint and contemplativeness in nature:fireflies with bright ideas and bats like jetting ambassadors and the mantis, like khaki police, and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each case closely, and then in the dark ears of ferns It is worth mentioning that Walcott, in the closing lines of â€Å"The Sea is History† momentarily steps out side of the pervading feeling of contemplative discovery and descent into the paci fic depths. In the following passage, the poem modulates to a much more complex and verbally agitated state: â€Å"the plangent harp of the Babylonian bondage,/ as the white cowries clustered like manacles/on the drowned women†.It is likely that Walcott intended this change in diction and pace to indicate an urgency in its historical and Biblical references. While Hughes and Walcott attain mythic stature by way of a restrained and muted poetic technique, Philip Larkin's â€Å"Faith Healing† seems to lament the absence of a working, living myth in the everyday lives of the people of the poem. His vision is one of sadness and lost love: By now, all's wrong. In everyone there sleeps A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make By loving others, but across most it sweeps As all they might have done had they been loved.That nothing cures. An immense slackening ache, Larkins' emotional impetus seems to be one of empathy, providing in the poem what the faith-healer cannot rightly provide in the context of the poem's narrative. The muted and restrained diction, rhyme and meter in this poems helps to impart to the poem a sense of the pedestrian, everyday setting that is the poem's central concern. It is ordinary people with ordinary problems all who suffer who may be redeemed by love. So, Larkin's quietude is in reverence for the redeeming quality of love and nature, but is also a respectful lament for the people who have been left out of love's redemption.This â€Å"quiet† poem masks a deep and rebellious sentiment which lies at the heart of the poem's themes. Larkin in lamenting the lack of redemptive love and tying this observation to a â€Å"weak† religious impulse is, in effect, criticizing the spiritual sincerity of his own society and questioning the value of religious faith as affectation, when the authentic redemptive quality is love, not religion. In conclusion, each of the poets examines made use of a restrained and contemplative voice for the expression of deeply emotional and spiritually profound themes.For Hughes and Walcott, the accessing of myth by way of a restrained and tempered idiom which drew from nature its tone of creative quiet, led to the expression of mythically charged Creation stories. The expression of abiding grief and the identification with elemental nature is also present in each of these poets. For Larkin, the muted and restrained idiom found effective use as a method for conveying his bitter observations of spiritual and religious hypocrisy. In each of the poems discussed both similar and dissimilar motivations for the poets' use of a restrained technique were found.The connecting energy between these poets is one of grief and of identification with nature. The dissimilar aspects are those regarding personal versus collective expression, with Hughes closer to the at the end of subjective confession and Larkin moving toward the universal, and Walcott somewhere in between. The poets' uses of a similar compositional technique and philosophy seems not to have occasioned a similar emotive and thematic range. Each poet chooses to use the muted and restrained idiom for a different purpose,, united in style if not in purpose.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Choosing Your - 1151 Words

Choosing Your Battles Josh FOSTER 9/12/2015 Choosing Your Battles Josh FOSTER 9/12/2015 How would you ensure sufficient discussion of contentious issues in a work group? How can managers bring unspoken conflicts into the open without making them worse? Conflict is a word with no shortage of definitions but common to most of those definitions is the idea that conflict is a perception (Robbins and Judge 2015, p.400). Conflict is most generally a process that begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something the first party cares about (Robbins and Judge 2015, p.401). The conflicts people experience in organizations are numerous with examples of such conflicts†¦show more content†¦In this the dysfunctional conflict environment changed radically and the organization was able to move from one of the world’s worst performing food companies to one that was recognized as a top performer by both the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Fortune 500 data on employee morale (Robbins and Judge 2015 , p.428). Also negotiating more ethically can lead to positive outcomes the text describes a guideline to negotiating with empathy with steps being 1) trying to understand your negotiation partners perspective. 2) Beware of your own emotions. 3) Beware of empathizing so much that you work against your own interests (Robbins and Judge 2015, p.418). Can you think of situations in your own life in which silence has worsened a conflict between parties? What might have been done differently to ensure that open communication facilitated collaboration instead? I deal with many small scale conflicts on a daily basis with my job. Conflicts between cost of the solution and the impact to compliance. I’m a contractor at a bio-pharmaceutical company dealing with their hazardous waste program. They have multiple areas they are lacking in when it comes to compliance. I and the site lead for my company have many suggestions that we bring toShow MoreRelatedChoosing Your Battles1341 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿ Choosing Your Battles Mustafa Q. Faisal Southern New Hampshire University Nov. 2014 Choosing Your Battles The conflict phenomenon has great role in all human life conditions, we can see the conflict among people, groups, organizations, and nations. World War I and II are best examples. Many organizations see the conflict as wasting of time and money, and should be avoid it. On the other hand, other organizations translate the conflict as important factor to great constrictive and high performanceRead MoreChoosing Your Battes674 Words   |  3 PagesChoosing Your Battles Southern New Hampshire University September 20, 2015 Dr. Fran Transcitti Noelle K. Thelen We all know that working in an organization gives way to various professional and interpersonal relationships as time progresses and with that inevitably comes inter/intra personal conflicts. The key to being successful is knowing when to push, when to concede, and when to collaborate. 1. How would you ensure sufficient discussion of contentious issues in a work group? HowRead MoreChoosing A Career For Your Life870 Words   |  4 Pagesstudy?† is a question I have heard from parents, teachers, grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, co-workers, and just about everyone else that says they know me. I don’t know how I am supposed to just know what I will do for the rest of my life. Choosing ones career should be a decision based over a long period of time, and after being exposed to many different experiences. And in order to acquire the best career for yourself you must make the decision, only you know what is best for you. Read MoreChoosing Your It Career Path12084 Words   |  49 PagesCHOOSING AND NAVIGATING YOUR IT CAREER PATH Newton s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by an external force. This is true of careers as well, including yours. Where do you want your IT career to be in one year? Do you want to have earned several IT certifications in that time, therefore advancing your IT career? Or do you want to be in the exact same place you are today? The only person whoRead MoreChoosing Your Career Affects Your Life Greatly849 Words   |  4 PagesChoosing your career affects your life greatly. You don t want to spend years in college to achieve a degree and then be stuck looking for any random job you can find in this economy You’ve then wasted five years studying for a career which you can’t even get a job for! With the weak economy, we have now, middle-skill jobs have arisen. Robert B. Reich explains in his article, â€Å"U.S. Income Inequality Keeps on Rising,† that there are th ree different types of services in the employment industry: Symbolic-analyticRead MoreChoosing A Dental Practice For Your Family918 Words   |  4 PagesWhy Choose Our Lexington, KY Dental Practice Choosing a dental practice for your family can be a difficult process. To make it easier, we have outlined all of the qualities that we think make our practice unique. Below you will find some of the reasons our patients return again and again to Beaumont Family Dentistry for all of their oral health care needs. We Put Our Patients First At Beaumont Family Dentistry, our patients are our priority. That means we do whatever we can to make getting the careRead MoreChoosing The Right Sources For Your Research1593 Words   |  7 Pagesneed and help them to get the relevant information. Choosing the right sources for your research can be challenging. For example, an academic textbook, a free internet search engine, television programs and a newspaper. An academic textbooks are really useful and helpful because it is producing a text with a specific and comprehensive information. It is easy to take out the information related to your topic. Books highlight the key features of your piece of work and also give you the depth informationRead MoreChoosing The Right Accountant For Your Financial Goals1574 Words   |  7 PagesChoosing the Right Accountant for Your Financial Goals Choosing the right accountant can seriously impact your taxes, ability to build wealth and lifestyle. Creative accounting can offer you and your family a better life, provide for retirement and shelter income so that you can earn more money with pretax income. Choosing an accountant is critical for getting the maximum return from your business and investments. Choosing an accountant often results in getting an expert in one area of investmentsRead MoreTips For Choosing Your Auto Insurance Provider1277 Words   |  6 PagesTips for Choosing Your Auto Insurance Provider Knowing that you are dealing with a great auto insurance company can give you some real peace of mind. The problem is one of determining which company offers the â€Å"best† car insurance, preferably at the best price. Let’s be honest, we are all different; we have different needs and expectations. We decide which company offers the best car insurance as viewed from our own paradigm. Frankly, the real test of the quality of your insurance provider occursRead MoreGraduation Speech : College And University Of Your Choosing920 Words   |  4 PagesCongratulations, you have just been accepted into the college or university of your choosing. The last six months, a time well spent perfecting your college entrance essays have paid off. The unexpected bliss of deciding your major, and knowing all of your schooling this far has lead you to this monumental milestone in your life. Although you feel prepared, you have lingering thought; did high school English prepare me for the challenges and expectations college professors expect in writing assignments

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

How to Write a Letter in German Format and Language

Aside from official documentation or for those few older relatives who may not have internet access, most people these days depend on e-mail for written communication. Taking this into consideration, the following information may be used for either traditional letters, postcards or e-mail. The most important aspect of letter-writing in German is to determine whether it will be a formal or casual letter. In German, there are far more stipulations when writing a formal letter. Not adhering to these formalities, you risk sounding rude and impertinent. So please keep the following in mind when writing a letter. Opening Greeting   These standard formal greetings can be used for business correspondence or with anyone with whom you would normally address as Sie. Formal Sehr geehrter Herr†¦.,Sehr geehrte Frau...,Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, If you are writing to someone with a professional title such as a doctor or a lawyer, then include it in the opening greeting: Sehr geehrte Frau Rechtsanwà ¤ltin NeubauerSehr geehrter Herr Doktor Schmidt Casual Lieber†¦., (This is the equivalent to dear and used only for close male relatives or friends.Liebe†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦., (Same thing as above, except used for females.) Unlike English, the word that follows your greeting begins with a small letter. Liebe Maria,ich bin so froh†¦ Note The more modern way is to end the greeting in a comma, however, you may come across the old-fashioned pre-computer/e-mail way of putting an exclamation point at the end of the greeting: Liebe Maria! Personal Pronouns It is extremely important to choose the appropriate personal pronoun. By not doing so, you may sound impolite. For a formal letter, you will address the person as Sie, with the obligatory capital S at all times (other forms are Ihr and Ihnen). Otherwise, for a close friend or relative, you will address them as du.​ Note If you by chance peruse books on letter-writing published before 2005, you will notice that du, dir and ​dich are capitalized as well. Thats the former rule prior to die neue Rechtschreibungsreform  when all personal pronouns used for addressing someone in a letter were capitalized. Letter Body These sentences may be helpful as you compose your letter:   Ich weiß, dass ich schon lange nicht geschrieben habe†¦I know that I havent written in a long time... Ich war so beschà ¤ftigt in letzter Zeit,... I was so busy lately... Vielen Dank fà ¼r deinen Brief. Ich habe mich sehr darà ¼ber gefreut.Thank you very much for your letter. I was very happy to receive it. Ich hoffe, dass Sie einen herrlichen Sommer verbracht haben. Ich hoffe, dass du einen herrlichen Sommer verbrachst hast. I hope youve had a wonderful summer. Ich hoffe, dass du dich besser fà ¼hlst. Ich hoffe, dass Sie sich besser fà ¼hlen. I hope you are feeling better. Mein Freund hat mir deine/Ihre E-mail Adresse gegeben. My friend gave me your e-mail address. Ich wà ¼rde gerne wissen... I would like to know... Es freut mich sehr zu hà ¶ren, dass ...Im glad to hear that... Vielen Dank fà ¼r deine/Ihre schnelle Rà ¼ckantwort. Thank you very much for your quick response. Concluding the Letter Unlike in English, there is no comma after a concluding expression in German. Gruß Helga As in English, your name can be preceded by a possessive adjective: GrußDein Uwe You can use: Dein(e) - if you are close to this person. Deine if you are femaleIhr(e) - if you have a formal relationship with the person. Ihre if you are female. Some other concluding expressions include:   Casual Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸e aus ...(city where youre from)Viele Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸eLiebe Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸eViele Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸e und Kà ¼sseAlles LiebeCiau (more for E-mail, postcards)Machs gut (E-mail, postcards) Formal Mit besten Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸enMit herzlichen Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸enFreundliche Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸eMit freundlichem Gruß Tip Avoid writing Hochachtungsvoll or any form thereof—it sounds very old-fashioned and stilted. E-mail Lingo Some people love it;  others despise it. Either way, e-mail jargon is here to stay and helpful to know. Here are a few of the most common German ones. mfg - Mit freundlichen Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸envg - Viele Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸eld - Lieb Dichlg - Liebe Grà ¼ÃƒÅ¸egn8 - Gute Nachthdl - Hab dich lieb On the Envelope All names, whether it be people or a business should be addressed in the accusative. Thats because you are either writing it An (to)†¦. someone or it is simply implied. An Frau/Herr†¦Frau/Herrn†¦An die Firma (company)...