Power Outage

My parents-in-law (near Grand Rapids) lost power for three and half hours.

Hope you weather the storms!

Don't worry, god just hates you. Oh yeah, and probably your neighbors too. Or maybe she wants you to become Amish. I can never tell.

The storm was pretty bad-ass, but I almost got stuck in the middle of a flooded street in downtown GR tonight. Fortunately I made it out, but a car passing on the other side of the road splashed a huge wave of water into my open window. Guess that's my fault for being dumb enough to leave my window open during a storm.

Let's hope Pat Robertson doesn't read your blog or he'll blame it on your support for gays.

The electric company is estimating that the power at my house will be restored by 10 pm on Thursday.

He's right, god really does hate you.

Down here in Floriduh we have a little experience with extended power outages. A common tactic is to fire up the grill and take care of all that meat left in the freezer. Sharing it with the neighbors makes for a community-building experience! Best of luck on the power.

Don't know where you are, but the power company here in Central Virginia has wised up that customers are happier when power is restored ahead of time.

So now they seem to tell you it'll take about twice as long as it actually does - and I'll admit - I get all happy and giddy when the lights suddenly pop back on hours ahead of when expected.

Hope that is what your experiencing...thekeez

Yeah, yeah - "you're" - not "your." Honestly though, I was going to write something like "Hope that is what your power company is doing" then I edited on the fly and well...thekeez

"Don't know where you are, but the power company here in Central Virginia has wised up that customers are happier when power is restored ahead of time. "

Or someone saw the Star Trek movie with Scotty explaining how you *always* sandbag when giviing estimates to look like a hero.

Jeff W. gave me this blog link when he was at your brother's during the power outage (I was on the phone with him); I've enjoyed reading your comments and others' regarding the death-bed conversion and atheism and whatnot. Hopefully this isn't a copyright violation of some sort, but Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller had an awesome "This I Believe" rant on NPR a few months ago and I thought you'd appreciate it:

"There is no God" by Penn Gillette
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
NPR, Morning Edition, November 21, 2005

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.