October 16 – “The mail”

 

 

I fetched the mail the other day.  Not an unusual occurrence.  I do it pretty much every day.  And if I don't someone else in the house does.  Except on Sunday and holidays, of course.  It's not that exciting a job.  Open the lid.  Reach in and pull out whatever is in there.  Get out the bills.  Give Chris whatever is left.  Pretty routine. 

 

But there is something to be said for this particular boring task, if you think about it.  What about the anticipation of the whole thing?  Did we get any letters?   Wait.  Letters.  That's what they used to call it when people would save up a whole string of emails or twitter posts and write them down on a piece of paper.  More likely than letters would be a card.  Now that would be more closely aligned to a FaceBook post, with a quick statement of news or best wishes and perhaps a photo enclosed.  Sometimes there might be a free sample of something.  Little stickers with your name and address to use as a return address.  A small box of cereal.  And coupons.  People love to send out coupons.  It's like having the Groupon ap on your smartphone with all its coupons.  My responsibility would be which bill will be in there to pay.  That's kind of like getting one of those free texts from your long distance provider to let you know of your account is paid up or not or just to let you know your balance is now available online. 

 

Ah.  Snail mail.  Nostalgic, I know. 

 

So the other day I got the mail, and Cailyn was excited, eagerly anticipating what marvelous relics would appear when DadDad reached into the black box that looms over her head.  It was a particularly weak day for the post, as far as I could see.  Coupons, ads, not even a bill to put on my desk.  Rather than throw it away, though, I casually handed one of the items to Cailyn.  And her response was amazing.  What I never even noticed, she reveled in.  Her eyes lit up.  She looked at me, speechless, like I had handed her check for a million dollars (A check, by the way, is something people used to use to keep track of when they spent money.  Kind of like an ATM card with a week or so lag time before it actually went into or came out of your account).  Cailyn took the ad booklet and ran into the room where Chris was sewing.  She shouted, "Nani, Nani.  Come here.  Look.  It's Christmas."  And for a good twenty or thirty minutes she and her Nani looked at Christmas merchandise.  All things, I suppose, boil down to a matter of perspective. 

 

1 John 2:15-17 says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

 

Father, help me every day to recapture the wonder of anticipation.  Amen.