Navajo prayer
If you are reading this, it is time to count your blessings. You have electricity. Chances are that you are warm, safe, and dry in this ferocious wintry storm that is blowing across the country.
I dragged out from under my electric blanket this morning and fumbled into the kitchen growling. I grumbled as I filled my coffeepot with water we had put aside, and waited for the darn machine to perk a cup of mud for me. I don’t get to take a shower. I have to flush the toilet with a bucket of water.
Yesterday, we discovered we have a leak in our foundation that was soaking the floor in the dining room. This only happens on holiday weekends when you can’t get a plumber (or have to pay through the nose, if you do). We had to fill the tub and several containers with water and turn off the water supply to the house. Now we have to wait for a repairman. He was supposed to come today, but smart money says he won’t.
A blanket of ice is covering the roadway. On top of everything, today I was supposed to travel to Beaumont, Texas (a nine hour drive at best) for three days of work. It was the only work I had in January. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I’ll just have to hope that the people in Beaumont will reschedule, because I can’t get there from here. And, I’ll have to put that impending plumbing bill on a credit card.
Poor, pitiful me.
What gives me the right to whine? The Associated Press reports that 330,000 people are without power because of the ice storm. They don’t even have much right to complain. There are shelters and resources, like the Salvation Army and The Red Cross, that will be jumping to their assistance. Most likely the power company will restore their power in a day or so.
What if it didn’t? I recently re-read the first chapter of James Burke’s book Connections. He recalls the power blackout in the northeast in November 1965, then poses that “what if” question. It points out very clearly that we are a nation of people who would not be able to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves because of our dependence on technology.
In our homeland and around the world, there are people every day who struggle to feed, clothe and shelter their families, while I sit on my ample derriere and “surf the net.” They have the right to whine.
Instead of web surfing, I could be visiting the Salvation Army, or the Red Cross sites and donating. I should take that load of coats to a homeless shelter. I would but the roadway isn’t clear. Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda.
Hmmm. The famous philosopher, Ice Cube, said
“The only thing that matters is what you’re doing,
not what you’ve done or what you’re about to do.”
Walk in Beauty.
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