The Power of Power

We take it for granted each and every day. Flip on a switch and the lights come on. Turn on your car and the headlights illuminate the night. Look around the city at dusk and lights twinkle from every window, every nook, and every cranny. Darkness is never a mandate for we have lights that highlight. Lights that enhance. Lights that protect.

I remember, years ago, when I had friends in from the old Soviet Union during the holidays, and I took them into downtown Chicago to view the holiday lights.

"You must have a lot of extra electricity," said my friend.

I pondered this for a minute and then saw our city through his eyes. Every tree aglow in twinkling lights, every building lit up like a Christmas Tree, every display window beckoning with it's ingenious displays. And then contrasted that with the single bulb that used to hang in the entrance way to his apartment in Moscow. We Americans do take our lit up world for granted.

But then the unthinkable happens. Mother Nature blows in and takes away what we perceive as our right. The right of light. Neighborhoods stand dark. People cluster together with nothing to do as all modern conveniences are stopped. And oh, that silence.

The silence is amazing. No refrigerator hum, no air conditioning whirr, no garage doors opening and closing, no TV or sound systems blaring. For without electricity- there is less sound in the world. Yet in the distance, there is the hum of generators struggling to make electricity where there is none.

What I find the most interesting are the people themselves. Stuck with having to amuse themselves, families walk the streets looking for other kindred souls with which to share a story or two. People sit on their front porches again beckoning to neighbors with foods from the freezer and warmish drinks from the non running refrigerators.

And in that instant, a community connects. And life, while it seems more complicated, is made simple again. Behold the power, of power.