BLACKOUT!

We had an interesting evening yesterday. I was quietly working on my hermeneutics notes for Thursday, when sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 the lights went black, then back on, then black, then back on... I was in a panic trying to get my computer turned off before everything was toast ... Then black. This time it stayed that way. I stepped out of the office (after banging into the corner of the desk - it really gets dark around here when house lights, street lights, and moon are all out - no relax, the moon is not part of the KC power grid, it was just cloudy)...Anyway, I stepped out of the office, and there sat Marisa at the kitchen table - face illuminated by her laptop screen - she made some kind of wise crack about me knocking a hole in the wall when I hit the desk. I made my way to the light. Then Debbie, who had been upstairs reading, tried to make her way down the steps without serious bodily harm. In a matter of minutes, there we were, a little nuclear family gathered around the comforting light of a laptop computer screen. Suddenly, talk of being Amish was beginning to flow. And of course in our IHOP world we wondered if we were having trouble making it now, how would we do during the tribulation. Interesting how a little power outage can cause us to wax philosophical. As we waited for the lights to come on, we fumbled around for flashlights which were not anywhere close to where we KNEW they were. Then the candles came out. Marisa, sitting at the kitchen table, grading papers by computer screen and candle light made a somewhat anachronistic statement. Continuing to wait, I decided to drive around the neighborhood just to see how widespread the blackout was. Also, I had lights in the car! It seemed that several square miles were dark. But I could find no cause - like a tractor/trailer sitting on top of a power pole. So I headed back home to report ... Nothing. About an hour and a half later, the lights suddenly popped on and we were able to go about our business as usual. What was so disconcerting was just how utterly lost and helpless we were without power -- and that is the sermon of the day.