Something curious is happening on the world wide web. Intimacy. And not of the more sordid kind with which you might commonly associate it.

In September the Australian songwriter Nick Cave told email subscribers of his plan to communicate outside “some of the more conventional ways of getting information across”. It followed the “Conversations with Nick Cave” events this year in the US and Ireland where, inspired by his 2017 world tour with the Bad Seeds, he explored a more direct relationship with his audience by just talking with them. The success of those gatherings has led to 10 more dates in Australia and New Zealand next year. Cave wanted to deepen further this engagement and so invited “questions or comments, observations or inspirations” from fans and he’d answer in a series of mail drops titled The Red Hand Files.

“You can ask me anything,” he told readers. “Like the Conversations with events there will be no moderator. This will be between you and me. Let’s see what happens.”

Like postcards from an old friend, the letters invite us to pause, look up and savour life

What’s happened is a peculiarly global one-to-one correspondence between the artist and his disciples, a shelter from the online storm free of discord and conspiracies, and in harmony with the internet vision of Tim Berners-Lee. The tone was set from the very first email, in which Cave was asked how his songwriting had evolved since Skeleton Tree. “Something has definitely shifted,” he replies, “and I have written a lot of new stuff … But, you are right, for a year it had been difficult to work out how to write, because the centre had collapsed and Susie [Bick, his wife] and I had been flung to the outer reaches of our lives.” His son, Arthur, died in 2015.

So far, so honest. But he goes further: “We all needed to draw ourselves back to a state of wonder. My way was to write myself there … but I also realised that I was not alone in my grief and that many of you were, in one way or another, suffering your own sorrows, your own griefs. I felt this in our live performances. I felt very acutely that a sense of suffering was the connective tissue that held us all together.” And he touches directly on his loss: “I have found a way to write beyond the trauma, authentically, that deals with all manner of issues but does not turn its back on the issue of the death of my child.”

The message’s confessional tone is affecting, a letter rather than an email. In subsequent notes Cave discusses family pets, the illusive nature of lyrics, his bond with collaborator Warren Ellis, absent friends, Grinderman, monsters under the bed, and the creative impulse. (“I have rarely sat down at my desk with something to say, other than I am ready. The sitting comes first.”)

With more than 1,000 questions received, Cave has now dispatched 10 Red Hand Files since 14 September. Some are shorter than others. This month, for instance, he was asked: “If somebody told you that the world was going to end in the next, let’s say, 72 hours, what would you do in those 72 hours?” To which, with a most Australian brevity, Cave replied: “I’d freak the fuck out. Love, Nick.”

A fan who has lost her father and sister but found first love asks about communication with them through dreams. Cave replies: “Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable … I feel the presence of my son, all around, but he may not be there.”

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There’s much to ponder and revisit, while the collection continues to grow. Like postcards from an old friend, they invite us to pause, look up and savour life. In a BBC profile last month, AN Wilson implored viewers to revisit the verse of TS Eliot, arguing that the poet’s themes of time and memory and belief are as relevant now as when written in the 20th century. He’s right, and similarly the letters from Cave bring solace in a tumultuous age, and perhaps also decades from now.

Reading the Red Hand Files brings a sense of Easter revival, of hope amid despair, inviting us to be still, be present in the moment, guided by a suited and booted vicar. While Donald Trump stirs ferment and craves adulation at his rallies, and Britain tears itself apart in a messy divorce, the quiet reflections of Cave spread peace and compassion and love through a medium renowned for its ability to spread division.

In this growing treasure trove of letters to the world, he is showing how to use the web beyond the hubbub of social media, to engage in more reflective and rewarding conversations. That’s no bad thing.

• Russell Cunningham is a production editor on sport for the Guardian