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The power went out yesterday afternoon at the Franklin house.  It was lunch and I was eating leftover pasta when the power dropped.  Flickered once, then out.  Instead of watching a DVD or Springer or something, I sat in a dim home eating pasta.  A fancy little digital thermometer tracked the temperatures as the house cooled.

My father, now in his 80’s, lived on a farm lit by kerosene lamps.  He jokes that when it got dark “you went to bed.”  It was FDR’s Rural Electrification Program which brought lights to the Franklin farm.  Dad’s job was to run wiring under the house and into small spaces.

Yesterday’s brief power outage reminded me how much of life is based on our tenuous hold on a power grid.  A century ago our world was based on the power of steam to drive factories and railroads.  Two centuries ago the power was biologically based…horses and people.  It’s impossible to imagine a world of darkness lit by flickering candles.

Sitting in my office I hear a gentle rumbling sound behind the wall.  Tuesday is ‘generator day.’  A computer program automatically fires up our emergency generator every Tuesday for a test.  The only way to tell we’re on ‘backup’ power is by listening.  Machines, lights, and people continue on.  My entire career is based on a technology and industry less than 100 years old.  Radio and television are old timers, though,  compared to computers and cell phones.  Electricity has made this possible, but are we masters or slaves?

It’s easy to say we are the ‘masters of electricity.”  But, I don’t believe that is the case.  One bad storm, one bad accident, one attack…and we’re back to the basics, without the tools.

We’ve become so dependent on our miracle that we couldn’t go back if we tried.  Although both the range and furnace use natural gas, it takes electricity to ignite them.  Our lovely new home doesn’t have the cross-ventilation thought essential in the pre-a/c days.  My truck requires 12-volts of solid power to start and generated power to operate.  The radio station uses thousands of watts of power every second to reach people.  The list goes on and on…

This Thanksgiving, though, it’s not the copper wiring in the house or the power plant down the road that makes me thankful.  It’s my family.  Yesterday, sitting in a modern home without modern conveniences, I thought how the one thing that does endure is family.  Power grids, computers, television…and even radio, are all fleeting.  It’s the gathering of family on Thursday and warm hands held in prayer.  ‘Family’ has endured the test of time and technology.

I’m blessed this holiday and I hope you are too.