Storms Leave 3 Million Without Power – NYTimes.com.
Both the US and England have been ravaged by rampant thunderstorms in the past week. This article covers what happened in the mid-atlantic regions of the US, but there was a particular paragraph in this article that caught my eye: “Some sought refuge in movie theaters, coffee shops and malls. On Saturday afternoon, Mont-gomery Mall in Bethesda, Md., was jammed with people seeking air-conditioning and working lights. Dozens camped out on the floor, with laptops, iPads and cellphones plugged into sockets on the walls.”
I found it interesting that people sought refuge in movie theaters, coffee shops and malls – there was a time when people used to find refuge in churches because they represented safety in God, but sadly it seems that the church has lost that place in people’s hearts and minds and has been replaced by the temples of our age – place of entertainment, eating and buying. I don’t mean that as a criticism of people’s desire to find safety in times of trouble, rather a sad reflection on the state of what the church has become to most people…
The other thing I found interesting was how people’s main priority seemed to be to get power to their personal communication devices – a reflection on just how embedded these have become in our lives. It makes me wonder what will happen on the day that there is no electricity even in the mall…because the situation is far worse than it is today and even the backup systems have failed. Of course nobody believes that today, but if you read in the book of Revelation, that and far worse is coming. I think it would be wise not to become so reliant on technology that we cannot live without it…after all human life and the relationships we have with each other are the only things of eternal worth, yet I can’t help but notice that many people around me place the things they posses on at least a par with that…
