Here’s today’s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.

On a wing and a prayer. When I first spoke Martha Williamson, the respected writer/producer who brought Touched by an Angel to life for nine highly-successful seasons on CBS,  her two-hour movie pilot for Signed, Sealed, Delivered was just about to air on Hallmark Channel.

That film — about a motley crew of postal investigators charged with uniting lost mail with its intended recipients — drew red letter for the network and naturally led to the current weekly series airing Sundays at 8:00 PM (ET). That, of course, is a time slot that for Williamson — and millions of TV viewers yearning for uplifting fare — has already been, well, Touched by an Angel.

The show, starring Eric Mabius (Ugly Betty) debuted strongly last Sunday with over 2.1 million viewers, making it, in terms of total viewers, the third most watched show in a very competitive time slot. The premiere episode (reviewed here) featured Valerie Harper in the colorful role of a legendary post office supervisor. In this Sunday’s episode, her character comes to a pivotal crossroad in her life.

Prior to last week’s premiere, I had the opportunity to talk again with Martha about her plans to help bring optimistic and uplifting drama back to television.

JWK: Touched by an Angel left the air in 2003. You’re two-pilot movie for Signed, Sealed, Delivered was a big success and now you’re suddenly back in the series game. How’s it feel?

MARTHA WILLIAMSON: The challenge of a weekly series, of course, is just that there is no time to take a breath. You just keep working. The farther along you get the more shows you’re juggling at one time. When I was doing Touched by an Angel, it was much more an anthology. It was sort of like writing a pilot every week because you didn’t have to grow the relationships of the angels. They weren’t going to be getting married or falling in love or having babies — all the usual twists and turns that you find. So, they were more separate entities, each episode.

Now, we have arcs for our main characters and I’ve never done that before. I think the closest I came was sort of sometimes in sitcom, when I was (writing for) Facts of Life. But I’m enjoying it because it really is an opportunity to start exploring relationships. We don’t just explore the nature of love but what is love about?…We’re building this little family of people. They are in many ways average American heroes. They don’t have exciting jobs that get everyone’s attention. They don’t make a lot of money. They’re not autopsying anything. But they are committed to doing the best work they can and doing a job well done — which is an old-fashioned concept.

JWK: These days in television, you tend to portray your cops, lawyers, doctors and people in politics and/or the media. Not too many shows depict people outside of those professions. Your heroes in this show are working for the post office which is about as unflashy as you can get. You don’t see people who would be described as “ordinary people” on television too much anymore.

MW: The extraordinary ordinary person. That combined with the challenge of bringing the best of the 20th century into the 21st century and finding something good to embrace about the newest technologies — to use them for good and not to destroy somebody but to try to encourage somebody (and) to help other people. Those are good messages. And also we try to be funny. I got started in comedy. I love to use humor in a show which is something we didn’t do quite so much on Touched.

JWK: Your dialogue is very witty.

MW: Thank you, very much. I love that. I think that’s the best time I have in the writing experience of this show is when I start laughing when I write. (It’s fun to) watch people be generous and goodhearted but also smart. I feel sometimes we hear “Hallmark” and we think it’s romantic and it’s Christmas — and to realize that there are messages to get across that have yet to be explored by Hallmark and they are open to it. (This Sunday we have) an Afghanistan episode, for example. That they (Hallmark) were willing so early in the series to start asking some difficult questions was very indicative of the fact that they are really supportive of a show that can be fun and witty and smart and heartfelt without being sappy.

JWK: So, the characters can be smart without being mean.

MW: Yes.

JWK: Do you think that given the current concerns over the NSA and email privacy, that letter writing delivered via old-fashioned snail mail is experiencing a bit of a comeback — and that your show might be more timely because of that?

MW: I’m certain of it. I find that I have started to receive more handwritten letters. When you see a handwritten envelope addressed to you in your packet of mail when you get your mail out of the mailbox — when you see a personal letter waiting for you — it’s exciting. It touches you. You say “Oh, somebody really thought of me and didn’t just slap a mailing label across an envelope. Somebody wrote something to me.”

I read the letters my parents wrote to me. I have letters from college friends and high school friends that I’ve saved over the years that I read and reread. I’ve discovered that some people now — beyond writing thank you notes — are just writing personal letters again.

And also, oddly enough, the Dead Letter Office notwithstanding, it seems to me that one of the most private things you can do anymore is to put a  letter in an envelope and putting a stamp on it. The chances of anybody reading that — or “hacking” into it — are very small. It’s still a huge miracle, when you think about it, that you can put an object into another object, put a stamp on it, drop it in a box and it can show up on the other side of the world.

JWK: What was it like working with Valerie Harper on the first two episodes — particularly amid all the public concern regarding her cancer diagnosis?

MW: It was fabulous! She has always been a good friend and an amazing, amazing professional. She did at least two episodes on Touched…I know that when we brought her on Touched by an Angel…she came on to the set and was the shining example of professionalism and positivity. I knew that’s exactly how we wanted to start (this new) series. I always wanted her to (play) the first supervisor on (Signed, Sealed, Delivered).  She embraced that idea. She and Tony (her husband) both embraced the idea that this could also be used as an opportunity to encourage a lot of people to do something good. She said “I want to do something good with this.” Just to see her there, giving her all and not just giving her all but saying things that matter — protect your heart, life is beautiful, don’t waste a minute of it. Coming from Valerie Harper, standing there dressed as Glinda the Good Witch of the North (in this Sunday’s episode), you can’t ignore it. That’s an indelible image…People will lean in and listen to that and it will resonate in a way that it might not coming from another actor right now. Coming from Valerie Harper, it has additional gravitas.

JWK: It’s good to hear and see that she’s doing well.

MW: Oh, she’s doing great! She just presses on. The treatment that she’s receiving has been working and it has even encouraged and allowed other people with the same illness to seek out similar treatment. It has given people a lot of hope. Even if they don’t have what she has, it is encouraging people to say “Listen, I can’t give up! I need to keep looking for new treatment and new ways to look at this and find things to do with my life and NOT GIVE UP!”

Valerie is the shining example of living until you don’t live anymore.

JWK: You also have other guest stars lined up, including, I understand, Della Reese, Valerie Bertinelli, Marilu Henner, Dick Van Dyke and Carol Burnett.