signed, sealed, delivered?

There has been a huge growth in the amount of deliveries made to homes each day. Internet shopping is to blame, of course, offering us the easy opportunity to acquire goods we need or things we want or just something that popped up as we were scrolling through the internet. We don’t even have to get off our sofas, unless we have to find a credit card because it wasn’t saved on our device, until the time it arrives.

There’s a whole new subculture of ‘first world problems’ that this causes. Minor conspiracy theories exist around whether delivery people, after claiming to have knocked on the door or rung the doorbell and not had an answer after waiting a nanosecond, deliberately try to find the most obscure place to leave a parcel. But we were indignantly at home all day, waiting impatiently.

But we have a weapon to help us: sometimes we can track the parcel on an app. We watch hopefully, even expectantly, as the icon representing the van moves ever closer along our road and we hover near the front door ready to fling it open and take the parcel from the surprised delivery-person’s hands. At the last moment the icon heads off down a turning just along the street and heads away from our house and we experience the frustration of waiting even longer.

Today’s bloggage is being brought to you by the hopeful, expectant anticipation of a long-awaited delivery arriving at some point within the 24 hours of this day. I will probably post a picture of it when/if it arrives – it’s a parcel of pre-publication date author’s copies of my poetry book.

Stop press: the image below is of the book, complete with title revealed

The book isn’t officially published until 31 August, marking the end of my sabbatical leave, but since I wrote it I have been able to buy some copies already. These will be inflicted as vanity gifts on friends and family, and there may be some copies available to buy too for those who see me in person and don’t want to order online. At the time of writing the last update that I have is that it was received at the local main sorting office and is being sent out to the local delivery centre for delivery today. So far no projected delivery ‘window’…

Now, before I get an indignant message from someone who works for a delivery company (and she knows who she is), let’s recognise what an incredible feat of logistics it is that something we click on to buy in the comfort of our own home manages to get to us at all, never mind within a specified time frame. The supplier needs to find the item (either by hand or by robot – depending on the size of the supplier’s business), pack it up securely (same players), put the correct delivery labels onto it, and arrange for a courier to collect it. The courier company then has to take it to somewhere to sort it so that it gets sent (along with all of the other parcels for a designated wide area of the country) to a more local sorting office, and it cascades down (hopefully not literally if it’s fragile) through gradually more localised sorting points until it arrives in the van of the delivery person. They then have to drive along a route that is the most efficient for the different destinations for the parcels, find the parcels in the back of the van, find their way along drives, up steps, through gates, past dogs, and find the front door for the delivery. They then have to use their initiative to find somewhere to leave it securely if the door is not opened.

When you break it down like that it’s amazing anything gets anywhere, isn’t it? An estimated 5 billion parcels are delivered successfully every year in the UK with less than 1% not being delivered! Wow. Well done the parcel delivery people. I know that there may be problems with what has been delivered, but it was delivered!

We humans have a tendency to see things from our own perspective (understandably, as that’s the perspective our eyes give us). If a parcel ends up in the 1% we take it personally. But if we can pause, think about the wider context of things, consider other people and how they are involved or affected, and act as graciously as we can in the light of all of that I reckon our own stress levels (and the collective stress levels of the country) will fall and the level of contentment will rise. In a church context, Paul called this ‘discerning the body’ – acknowledging and including everybody else before we act or react.

So, whether or not my books actually make it here today I am so grateful for all the people (and robots) that have got it as close as it already is.

Be blessed, be a blessing