Aftermath and Power

Hurricane Irene raged through our area overnight Saturday. At our house in particular we were spared the worst, we had no important damage.

We lost electrical power Saturday night and as of this afternoon it's still out. So this afternoon I am writing from the library. Before I came here, I emptied and cleaned the refrigerator freezer. It hurt to throw out so many lovely items of carefully prepared and preserved food: chicken cubes ready to be made into salad; various half-empty veggie packages; two microwave meals I'd forgotten I'd had in there, and lots more. Some of it still had ice crystals, and mostly I cooked that. But once-good food went onto the compost pile.

We have a propane camp stove for cooking, and I kept at the process. Now , newly cooked and in the frig we have green beans and bacon, veggie burgers and one beef burger, and peroigies, an odd combination to be sure, and it makes me laugh. I'm keeping ice in the frig, so there are some greens for salad, and tomatoes from the farm, ripe and delicious at this time of year, waiting on the counter. We have enough. In spite of the power outage.

Power outage, electric power, the power company, real power, no power, powerless... Such a study in the links between the words about electrical energy and social control, physical strength, other strength of all sorts, life control. Power.

How many times have I come square against the recognition of my powerlessness, of human powerlessness?

I set out to walk this morning feeling full of tension and anxious frustration. I knew I needed to do something about the thawing refrigerator freezer. So step-step-step I began to visualize the clean, empty space, began to imagine and formulate an order of action, the ordinary, practical steps I could achieve to create the change from the mess I'd looked at before I left the house to that cleared, white porcelain box. The creative imagination of my life.

Not to be confused with The Creative Imagination of Life.

There have been times in my life when I have been stunned by the real and sudden occurrence of an event that I had simply never imagined. At those times, a change I had not considered possible thrust itself upon me. Such events, though, are uncommon.

Change like the cleaning of the freezer is more common. Ordinary. I imagine and consider a possibility, I formulate a plan of action, I carry through the planned actions (or some variation on the theme) and change occurs, small or less than small. I look around and know that in all the world my procedure is common.

So it makes me wonder, what is the connection between The Creative Imagination of Life that is too big to comprehend, and all the creative imagination of life scenarios going on among us, in every one of us? J.B. Phillips wrote the book Your God Is Too Small. A whole book expounding on the topic, but the title says it all. In these days of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, wild fire-- whose creative imagination comprehends an Overarching Creative? Can you trust the one who claims to know the will of God? Just wondering...