Accepting Mediocrity

“Neither rain, nor snow, nor death of night, can keep us from our duty. The mail must go through.”

That was the 1860 Pony Express motto for its tireless, determined mail couriers.

Perhaps it’s time to bring back those “pony-riders” because the United States Postal Service (USPS) needs help. This month, I received a letter that had been mailed to my home address here in Lee County, Mississippi, 53 days ago.

Yep, you read that correctly: It took 53 days for one piece of mail to arrive at my home (in excellent, almost pristine condition, mind you) from someone who mailed it to my correct address from … Iuka, Mississippi. So, it took nearly two months for one piece of mail to travel 65 miles – right here in the good ol’ USA.

If that had been an unusual occurrence, I’d probably assume some weird, random reason. Maybe it fell into that tight space between a mail carrier’s seat and steering column. Or maybe, someone else received it by mistake and failed to forward it to me for weeks.

But here’s the thing: Even in my small spot in the world, late mail is common. But it’s not the fault of my local mail woman. She is on the ball. She knows us by name and goes out of her way to deliver items quickly.

But something somewhere is amiss with the USPS.

This summer alone, I received another envelope mailed 16 days earlier from an even closer mailing location – Ecru, Mississippi, a mere 16 miles away – 16 miles! I also received numerous letters from nearby towns and cities that took a week or more to deliver. (Some of those senders paid for overnight or 2-day delivery.)

Back in the winter, a “thank-you” note was also sent back to me (nine months later) from a church in New Albany, Mississippi, barely 20 miles north of me. Even crazier than that – in big red letters – it was stamped by the USPS as undeliverable to that address. Yet, I verified it had been sent to the correct address of a large, long-established church in a huge building situated on a main thoroughfare in that small, nearby city. 

Seriously, anyone old enough to legally drive a car in New Albany, Mississippi, would know where that church is, and yet, the USPS could not find the church or deliver my note. Nor could they return it in a timely manner, unless they deem nine months as timely.

Apparently, I am not alone in my distress or lack of timely mail.

Multiple local and national news sources reported on a self-initiated audit of several USPS branches in Louisville, Kentucky, that discovered over 112,000 pieces of delayed mail during the first few days of April – mail that had been in the facility since January.

The self-audit also revealed that within one year, 54.6% of all facility mail movement was late, canceled, or required extra attention.

I vote for the “extra attention” coming from a revival of Pony Express carriers.

Those “young, skinny, wiry fellows” who carried mail for the Pony Express to all the stops between St Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, got it right – and right on time – in 11 days versus 45 days for regular mail. There was no mediocrity in their ranks.

Around 80 “pony-riders” worked for the Pony Express, covering the 2,000-mile mail route from Missouri to California. Each man rode about 250 miles daily for a mere $25 weekly. Even with that low payroll, Pony Express never made a dime in its short, 19-month existence.

But the USPS is not financially solvent either.

With a current fiscal budget of around $80 billion, multiple billion-dollar taxpayer bailouts in the last few years, and continually rising costs of mail, USPS is neither prosperous nor productive. (A single first-class stamp will cost .78 beginning mid-July.)

So … what can we do?

It’s obvious what I did: I accepted my 53-day-old mail and did nothing to change the problem – other than complain.

Ironically, isn’t that exactly what we do every day as Christians living within a culture that is anything but Christ-centered?

We shut our eyes, close our mouths, stick out our hands, and accept the situations that come our way in our government, churches, schools, and homes – no matter how radically ridiculous.

We don’t make waves. We don’t dare to offend. We certainly don’t question the process. We simply accept the “mail” of the day by tolerating the way things are. Yes, most of us accept what the culture hands us and move on.

But then I think of Brother Don Wildmon.

Over 40 years ago, the founder of American Family Association refused to simply accept the nation’s cultural decline. He refused the mail … so to speak … and took a stand against the onslaught of media garbage coming into homes. And in the process, he started a culture war that is still being waged – and won – in many areas of our daily lives.

Now, I’m not a Pony Express Rider, and the state of the USPS is not a major cultural battle. But the problems with our mail service are indicators of blatantly accepted mediocrity and madness within our culture.

So … the next time … the mail carrier leaves a 53-day-old letter in my mailbox, I can and will take it back to the post office and refuse to accept it.

My action might not be a major win in the culture war, but it will be a line in the sand for me – the mail line between Tupelo and Iuka, Mississippi. And that’s a good place to start.

What about you? Will you accept mediocrity and madness in your own little world? Or will you mark that daily mail as undeliverable and send it right back to the sender?

If so, check out AFA Action; it’s a good place to start: https://afaaction.net/.