A Few Days Ago, I Took My Mail-in Ballot to the Post Office
A few days ago, I took my mail-in ballot to my local post office, more than a week ahead of the actual deadline to vote by mail. As I walked out of the post office after carefully depositing my mail-in ballot in the inside mail slot – a right I no longer take for granted since the 2020 presidential election – I stopped and contemplated the mailbox standing outside the entrance to the post office. I remembered how when I came to the post office in August 2020, now more than two years ago, the bolts holding the outside mailbox to the concrete sidewalk had apparently been sawn off and the metal mailbox removed with the 2020 presidential election just a little more than two months away. And as I now stood there, I also remembered the cryptic message inside the post office giving the hours of pickup from the inside mail slot in carefully crafted gobbledygook to disguise the real language that no ballot deposited inside the mail slot on election day after 10 AM would be picked up and postmarked and mailed off that day to the Election Center.
At that time, after I deciphered the real intent of not picking up and postmarking ballots deposited inside the post office on Election Day, I remembered the words of John Lewis quoted at his funeral about if you see something, do what you can. I then took photos of where the missing mailbox once stood and of the cryptic deceptive message posted within. Back at home, I knew I needed to do something, and I decided to send an email letter expressing my alarm and concern about the missing mailbox, with the photos of the space where the mailbox once stood and the cryptic message included, to every elected official – senators, representatives, the Speaker of the House, the mayor, city council members, etc. – and to every news organization I could think of. I alerted my friends to this travesty of justice at my local post office and told them they should check the situation at their local post office – several finding other strange shenanigans at their own local post office!
My alarm and concern about the missing mailbox was apparently just one small part of a greater national concern about then recent changes to the mail collection procedures that eventually reached congress, and soon – and in time for the election – another mailbox was bolted down in front of my local post office. I eventually wrote a two-part posting about my letter writing on the missing mailbox and the unexpected email correspondence between a friend and me stemming from it for my website. Below is the direct link to Part 1. Part 2 follows Part 1.
Discovering that the Post Office Collection Box Had Been Removed from the Front of My Local Post Office and Its Subsequent Ever-Widening Ripple Effects in My Life Ending with Final Thoughts on an Email Discussion Abandoned by a Friend without a Final Response – Part 1 | Writing In The Shade Of Trees
As I stood contemplating this new mailbox in its rightful place of public service, I thought back to that deliberately ugly and divisive election time about two years ago, and I decided to take a photo of this mailbox restored for service in our democratic process as a reminder of that small local victory.
And yet, as I walked back to my car, I realized that even though the victory two years ago was indeed a victory, the mailbox removal from public service back then seems almost sophomoric compared to the current openly illegal, evil-minded, and blatantly unjust and violence threatening attempts to suppress the voting rights of multiple thousands of citizens across our nation. Two years ago, I wrote multiple letters about the missing mailbox. Now writing elected or appointed officials in some states and/or counties about election irregularities and threats to the voting process, may be a seemingly futile exercise, for now, some state and county and other officials are actually in the lead in crafting rules and regulations and even laws making it more difficult for certain communities and groups of people to cast their ballots – to vote, to exercise their rights, to participate in our democratic process.
All of these attacks upon our democratic process sadden me. For all citizens would assert they cherish and honor the sacrifices of the millions of Americans who fought and even shed their blood to protect our freedoms, rights, and liberty, but many of these voter suppression actions mock the sacrifice of those we rightly honor as heroes in their service to our nation. It is as if they wish to erase the Preamble to our Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It seems that we have forgotten the great documents of our nation, and perhaps it is time to go back and saturate our hearts and minds with the lofty and noble words of Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. We would learn a much truer definition of what a citizen and true patriot of our nation should be.
So now when I sit quietly before God, considering the growing issues of unrighteousness, injustice, and the attack upon and the absence of truth within our national discourse, and within those churches that are ever more bent away from Christ and His gospel, and more towards their own political influence and agenda, I become even more aware that it is absolutely more imperative than ever for me, and for those who see something, to take the time to think through and understand what we are seeing and hearing, and then to speak up, to write, to just do something that we can. Because even an act which may be viewed and belittled as small and insignificant, can also be multiplied for change towards good by other persons of good will.
The Lord has declared that He is the God who exercises justice and lovingkindness and righteousness on earth because He delights in them (Jeremiah 9:23-24). And doing what we can demonstrates a trust in God and a commitment within ourselves to delight in those things in which He takes pleasure. There is truly a lot of work ahead, many small acts to be performed, by people of good will, by those striving to love God with their whole heart, mind, and soul – our energy, creativity, diligence, and intelligence – and to love our neighbor as ourselves. For as it says in Micah 6:8:
He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Thank you Chris, for sharing this. Yes, we are living in dangerous times. I hope and pray that on elections day, things do not get out of control.