The other night I tried to blog, then I didn’t, then I did, then I didn’t. Our electricity went out, then on , then out, then on, then off for many hours. We called our illustrious Delmarva Power and were informed that 1600 homes were without power until midnight. It is now 9:15pm. Thank God for laptops with batteries. I am sitting in the dark, with a panicked dog hanging onto to my neck, writing. I was going to tell you about my new boyfriend, but without power it got me to thinking about lights and power and electricity.
We are so dependent on Mr. Franklin’s discovery of electricity that without it we are almost reduced to a blithering mass of jelly. Whenever power goes out in our house the first words out of anyone’s mouth is “O my God, we have no power.” It is as if the world were about to end. And, I guess in a way we do lose a big chunk of our everyday world. No TV, no Internet, no light, no washer, dryer, dishwasher, radio, no heat, no gadgets, no chargers revving up our electronic gismos, no stove (unless you have a gas one) no dishwasher, no life. Nothing. Nada. Nil. Dark.
As I sat in the dark I was reminded of Genesis 1:1-4 which says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And, God said “Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good and separated the light from the darkness. So here in the dark there is nothingness and nothing to do, but then we find light from a candle, a flashlight, or even the glow of a not yet dead smartphone. This strange sense of life springing out of that darkness comes over me. We call it light, day, brightness. No wonder God decided that was the very first thing this planet needed. And, voila, God saw that it was good. I imagine God let out a big WOOHOO, for it is indeed good.
Light gives me life. Without light we have no life and would just sit in darkness forever, not moving, not thinking, not seeing, just being. We, might however, wonder a bit about what comes next. But I imagine we are afraid to move into some unknowing nothingness. It is no wonder that the bad guys always wear black and the good guys always wear white. Did you ever see an angel dressed in black. Did Jesus ever wander the desert in a black robe? Darkness is blackness. Lightness is white. I know that my spirit needs light to exist.
With the light of the day we can grow food, move around, see God’s creation, see other people, be alive. But, before the advent of electricity we were limited to daylight, candles and oil lamps. Just enough to read or sew or clean a gun in the evening. Not enough to run our machines, our toys, and our gadgets. For that we need to generate many kilowatts of electricity and, indeed we do. Just as God liked light, so do we and we gobble up the kilowatts as if they were peanuts that we couldn’t stop eating potato chips where we couldn’t eat just one.
When our family went away for two months and turned off all our appliances and computers I thought we’d save a bundle on our electric bill. Hah, not so. With nothing seemingly drawing any power our electric bill was still $79. Even pulling out all the plugs during another six weeks away our electric bill was $65. Seems all of our appliances, gadgets, computers, DVR’s, and what not have little tiny standby lights and the pulse of electricity goes on even in the darkness.
Guess God knew those sparks were out there just waiting to light up our life. Thus, there I sat in an almost primordial darkness, lit only by the glow of my dimming computer screen as the battery power drained. Yes, God, I’m with you; the first thing I would create would be that wonderful, glowing, blessed light. Let the lights come on I prayed and prayed. Oh, forget it, I’d already missed Harry’s Law and it didn’t look like I’d get to see Revenge either.. I went to bed and hoped that by dawn Delmarva would have the problem fixed. It didn’t, but that’s another story, or rant, for another time.