Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Oops! The power, as in, the electricity here, went off recently for a few hours. (I hasten to apologize to hurricane victims who will quite rightly see my moaning as a firecracker problem compared to the nuclear difficulty they’ve endured for days or weeks.)
For about one minute, I didn’t even notice. My wife and I were sitting in the living room and drinking coffee.
Had the power been fritzed a bit earlier and the coffee not been automatically pre-dripped for us, I’d have noticed more quickly. As it happened, the blinds were open, daylight was streaming in, and we were already well on the way to caffeination when we realized that we were powerless.
What we noticed first, I think, were the clocks. Oh, our chiming wall clock was spring-powering along as proficiently as ever, happy as a Westminster clam. But all of our clocks of a digital nature had been struck blind.
No surprise, it’s always surprising to realize how many clocks inhabit one’s home. Between various appliances, we have at least four of the digital variety just in the kitchen.
And I wonder. Am I the only one who will expend real effort to be sure all of the clocks in the same room are proclaiming exactly the same time at least most of the time? Say, 75% of it? That seems reasonable to me, whereas holding out for 76% or more might seem a bit neurotic.
So, the power was out, and, when electric juice quits flowing in even briefly, ramifications begin piling up.
When we moved here years ago, it didn’t take this city boy long to realize that living in a house where water is supplied by a well means that when the electricity goes out, water is no longer pumped in. Zero power, zero water. No water, no showers. And, by the way, one flush per toilet. (Choose wisely.)
I also submit that, in a power outage, even a person of at least average intelligence, and perhaps even holding a flashlight in one hand, will still, as he’s entering a room, reach to the wall to flip a light switch. This will accomplish precisely nothing, though it might be an aid to humility as you repeat the same folly multiple times. At least, I always do.
Once our brief outage was over, it was reset time. I wish kitchen appliance manufacturers would get together on this. Step No. 1 on one of the ovens I always get to reset should be to set aside 10 minutes to stand mutely in front of the machine and pray to find the proper menu. (Settings, not food.)
Across the kitchen, another machine’s clock reset procedure is more intuitive, but its digital keypad brain is fritzed and frenetic. Its blue-green numbers spin around like fruit on a Las Vegas slot machine.
You can indeed reset the time — if you can catch it.
And therein lies our larger problem. Most of us spend far too much of the time of our lives feeling powerless to ever catch the time. We’ve been warned.
The Bible tells us that time passes more swiftly than “a weaver’s shuttle” and drifts by like a “passing mist” or a “passing shadow.” The days of our lives are, at best, “a mere breath.” The hot wind blows over us, and we “wither away like grass.”
All true, which makes it wise, I think, to through faith plug our souls into the very life of the One who is all-powerful and eternal.
Curtis Shelburne writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at:
