Pony Express

The current Smithsonian Magazine reflects upon the inaugural run of the Pony Express on April 3, 1860. The network of riders began in St. Joseph, Missouri, carrying a pouch with 49 letters and 5 telegrams to San Fransisco. The trip took 11 days, 75 horses and 20 riders ... which was 10 days faster than stagecoach.
The Pony Express lingers in our imagination but lasted only 18 months (when telegraph service linked the east and west coasts).
For everything there is a season ... a time for birth and another for death, a time to plant and another to harvest, a time to hold on and a time to let go.
What's hard are the in-between times ... what William Bridges calls the "neutral zone": Since a life transition is a kind of buried rite of passage to begin with, a person's life will take on, willy-nilly, symbolic overtones at such times. The value of reflecting on the symbolism and making up little private rituals is not for the sake of ceremony but simply to become more aware of the shape of the natural transition process. Dying, the neutral zone, and rebirth are not ideas that we bring to life; they are phenomena that we find in life. The only trick is to see them -- by looking beyond the reflected light of the familiar surface of things and seeing what is really there, working in the depths. (Transitions)
Lord, on this Holy Saturday, as we remember you within the tomb (between the cross and resurrection) help us to abide and endure our own transitions with hope and faith. Amen.