Steve West - Waiting on the mail

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 13th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Next up, a new voice.

Well, not really a new voice.

Well, that’s true! But not a voice you’re used to hearing at the end of the program. Steve West is a lawyer who writes about religious liberty issues for WORLD Digital. He often joins us to talk about the latest court battles. But today he’s got something else on his mind.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: The mail came today. In its own way, that’s just short of miraculous considering the paths each piece must follow, all the things that must work right for something mailed in say, Perth Down-Under to make it across oceans and continents to a black metal box on my street. I felt like telling the carrier that he’s wonderful, that mail delivery is amazing, but he might misunderstand.

I’ve been waiting for the mail for a long time. When I was young, say 8, I ordered travel brochures and welcome packets from faraway states like Idaho and Wisconsin, just so I could receive mail with my name on it. I sat on the front porch and watched for the little white truck hiccuping down our street. I joined book and record clubs, waited for the mail truck, did not let the mail settle in the box before pulling it out and rifling its treasures. I pulled advertiser cards from the travel magazines, checked all the boxes indicating I wanted more information, and sent the cards in. I waited. The box filled. The mailman’s smile waned.  Reading the boosters’ travel magazines I dreamed of snow-capped mountains and Wild West prairies, laid the maps out on my bed and traced the meandering lines of my imagination.

The other day I was coming home from work and noticed my neighbor’s small blonde-haired son in their driveway, the door of their mailbox left gaping. He held a single catalog in his hand as he ran to his Mom.

“Where’s the rest of the mail?” she asked. “You forgot to bring the rest of the mail.”

He didn’t hear her.

“This is the best day,” he said. “I got a toy catalog! This is the best day.”

I looked at the thick packet of mail in my hand. I got a bill. That’s the distance between childhood and middle-age.

But today’s delivery brought a few other things. Two fashion catalogs that contain posing people that don’t look like anyone I have seen anywhere. Three banks sent personal letters that make prodigious use of my name throughout. They would like me to secure their credit card, for which they say I qualify, as if I won a prize. I rip them all in half, pleased by the sound, and toss them in the recycling bin, where they can make their noisy claims to the dark.

But not all my mail suffers the same desolate end. One day, not so long ago, I received a letter from my daughter, light and newsy with the buoyancy of prairie air. And then a sequel. I kept them both, tucked them in a nook on my desk where they stand golden among the clutter.  Occasionally they beckon, and I read these little missives from the past, then return them to their post where they go quiet until another day.

That’s why I still love getting mail. Letter carriers don’t realize what they’ve done for my life. Behind their sometimes weary expressions, they transport love.

I’m Steve West.

(Photo/iStock)

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