mail man of the Gospel

This creed was in my mind as a young child...

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

My brother and I had fun with it, fueled by the Pony Express and Wells Fargo shotgun toting cowboys in old westerns. To pop a few bubbles it was around long before the UPS.

"It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed."

—Herodotus, Histories (8.98) (trans. A.D. Godley, 1924)

There is something intrinsically honorable in it, it resonates a truth. It makes us take pause.

The last time I was deeply moved by the men and women of the postal service was in 2001. Anthrax was being sent randomly through the mail. I was working at Starbucks at the time and one of my regulars, Ron, was a postman as was my good friend Jim. I would pray for them daily. They both, and all their other coworkers were fearing death, day in and day out, from a white powdery substance that my be in any one of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail they handled.

After the attacks the postal service added this:
"We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever"
( 2001 Comprehensive Statement on Postal Operations (1.A-1)

Today, as Advent continues and the readings get frighting I will take this charge, tweak it, and live it.

 We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters of the Most High God. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever"