WHAT DOES THE POSTMAN DO
WHEN THERE IS NO RECEPTACLE?

We have had copies of this journal returned for all sorts of reasons, the main one being that subscribers move without informing us. Occasionally one comes back to us marked Refused! As long as our readers send the paper to others, there will be some of that, but the news here is good since very few are refused, maybe no more than one or two a month. One was returned to us from Oregon because we had abbreviated Street to St. It cost us the usual 25 cents. That time I wrote the postmaster in protest, and he forthwith apologized.

But Ouida has just shown me a return for a reason we have not encountered before: a would-be reader in Porterville, California does not have a mailbox, and so the return is stamped No mail receptacle. What does a postman do when there is no mailbox? I can hardly write the postmaster in protest, arguing that the postman should have taped the paper to the man’s front door. We think it strange that anyone in this fair land would have a bona fide postal address, with zip code and all, and not have any place for the postman to leave the mail. Does John (his name really is John) not receive any other mail? Is Restoration Review the only thing that has ever been mailed to him? Or did someone swipe his mailbox?

Well, anyway, it set Ouida and me to do some homespun philosophizing. No receptacle, no blessings. It is generally true, isn’t it? President N. B. Hardeman of Freed-Hardeman College had a way of reminding us students that we’d have to bring our buckets to class if we expected to take anything away, and he would refer to some boys’ buckets being bigger than others. Sort of corny, perhaps, but true enough. Even the God of heaven cannot bless us with some things unless we hold out a receptacle. One parable assures us that more is given to the one who applies himself, while the one who makes no effort will be stripped even of what he has. It may be a hard saying, but it shows that life has its rules that have to be respected if one is to do well. And it shows that God helps those who help themselves. Even His grace, however free, has to be willingly received. President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, though a free gift of the nation, had to be acknowledged and received by the former President before it had validity, which, by the way, was an admission of guilt. One can hardly say that Nixon deserved it or worked for it just because he received it. But he did have to receive it, a wilful act on his part. So it is with God’s grace or pardon. A person must provide the receptacle, at least that of an open heart.

But a lot of things can happen to receptacles. We might get a paper back one of these days with the notation: Box too crowded for anything else. Junk mail is but one form of junk. We fill our minds with so much superficial stuff that we haven’t any room for anything worthwhile. If people are to be judged by what they read (or by their refusal to read) and watch and give their time to, they had better plead for mercy. There is so much tripe on TV that I can understand why anyone would turn her set off forever, especially a concerned Christian. I was impressed with an ad in our local paper. A couple was selling their color TV, with the explanation, We have become Christians. Maybe they wanted to clean out their mailbox so they could receive things like Restoration Review!

Or we might get a return marked: receptacle inaccessible, overgrown with briars. If that rarely happens to mailboxes, it often happens to hearts and minds. One of the saddest lines of Scripture is: because iniquity abounds the love of many shall wax cold. Sin discourages people so that even those who once loved love no more. In this week’s mail was a letter from a sister in California who wanted us to pray for a brother who was once known for his zeal for the Lord, but who has now gone back to the world. The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches can make one’s heart as inaccessible to the call of God as briars and thistles can obstruct a mailbox.

And there are some receptacles that are both adequate and accessible, except that they are barred by lock or chain. The most insistent of our mail, such as the bills we get, cannot find its way into a locked box. That one would really cause Ouida to raise her eyebrows should She sees it on a returned paper: Locked out! But it is true of so much of life. Those that need advice the most are not open to it, not even from those most capable of giving it. Mortimer Adler, who has spent his life working with problem-solving ideas, says that the human race’s most serious problem has always been to get the youth to listen to the wisdom of the aged. Usually they won’t do it, and each generation has to make the same old mistakes.

I am thinking of a lad in Alabama (though they are everywhere) who could not listen to his old Dad when it came to driving a car on the highway. When they buried him while he was yet in his teens, his parents moaned the dirge of many a parent, Son, if only you would have listened to us! He had a receptacle, but he had barred the door, even to the pleading of his own parents. “If you get more stubborn every time you are corrected, one day you will be crushed and never recover” (Pro. 29:1 GNB) would do well on everyone’s bathroom mirror.

A closed mind is such a tragedy, just as is the locked mailbox that prevents the flow of love letters. Many of those who profess to believe the Scriptures actually have their minds closed to the very book they claim to love. Their minds could well be labeled, Closed to new ideas. One purpose of this journal is to help people to open up and stand tall, and we believe the best way to do this is not to browbeat them but to appeal to their nobler impulses. Love is the great motivation. We must show them what they are missing when they miss love.

When the grace of God is really allowed into one’s life, she will open” up to all of God’s free-flowing blessings. A rather boring Bible will become love letters from heaven. Other people will become persons to be loved rather than things to be used. As Martin Buber puts it, grace will bring one to see another as a Thou rather than as an It.

Well, so much for mailboxes or the lack of them. We are thankful that most of you do have receptacles for your mail and that you let us enter in now and again, and we are especially grateful that there are many open hearts as well. Even more encouraging is that many hearts, once rather cold and closed, are now opening up, like a spring flower, to the beauty of a free and responsible religion.—the Editor.