c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of RNS.)

UNDATED _ Last weekend I was bit by the Y2K bug.

The actual sting occurred about 12 hours after my family and 400,000 of our neighbors lost power during an ice storm. As we settled in for a long, cold, dark night I remembered the words of those who say we shouldn’t panic over the impending computer havoc.

Sure, there will be interruptions of service here and there, they say. Some power outages, street lights out, elevators that don’t work. Nothing to worry about, they claim. It will probably only last a few days or weeks.

Days? Weeks? Let me tell you, hours _ make that minutes _ are a long time to go without lights, heat and, especially, cable television and Nintendo. Thank heavens we had an adequate supply of AA’s to keep Game Boy in operation or there might have been a mass suicide in our home.

As it was, we soon discovered that modern families are totally lacking in the most rudimentary survival skills and completely ignorant of the force behind most of what is necessary to carry on life.

When our radiators grew cold, my teenage son insisted we could just use space heaters. When the electric burners proved useless, my other son said he would be willing to accept a microwaved version of dinner. When we hauled the inflatable mattress down to place in front of the gas fireplace we all realized with horror that the air pump had a plug.

As we lined up in front of the sole source of heat and discovered that we were singeing our eyelashes while we still had frozen behinds, we discussed our options. The one battery-powered radio (normally used in the shower) broadcast closings so extensive our creative ideas began to disappear.

Our favorite shopping mall was closed. So were the movie theaters. Even the ice rink was shut down. We went for a drive to see if we could find a restaurant and soon discovered that driving without the benefit of street lights and stop lights is too hazardous for those of us without SUV’s eguipped with ramming bars on the front.

We came back to the icy house and thought about what we could eat. I was about to yell at the kids for leaving the refrigerator door open too long, when I realized that it was responsible for a sudden rise in temperature in the kitchen. That’s when I began contemplating a Y2K survival kit.

Should the computer bug create a little glitch next year like we experienced because of an ice storm, I want to be ready. I plan to put away enough water and canned tuna to get us through a week.

But beyond that, I’m thinking of buying a guitar, some good books and some unscented candles (those fragrant ones make you nauseous after awhile) and looking forward to some family time.

Because what we discovered once we exhausted our options was that it was kind of nice to hang out with nothing to do. We got used to watching the fire. We began to enjoy the silence. We sang songs and invented games. We thought about life and the people we love.

On Sunday we were happy to discover our church was heated and well-lit. As we settled in to our Sunday school class, the teacher began to talk about how easy it is to miss God’s grace. Then he read a verse I had never seen before from the book of Jonah:”Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” It suddenly occurred to me that so much of what clutters our daily life keeps us from truly experiencing grace with each other and from God. The ice storm that blanketed our city and cut off our diversions forced us to really look at ourselves and one another in a new way. Eventually, my youngest son even turned off his Game Boy.

It was tough at first. It will be even tougher if the Y2K bug affects the entire country. But a massive slowdown might be just what this country needs. We’ve lost touch with many of our basic survival skills. Even worse, we’ve lost touch with one another.

Maybe we’ve even made some of the good things in life into modern day idols. I don’t think the Y2K bug has anything to do with God’s judgment on humans. But I am beginning to wonder if it might be God’s way of giving us a little taste of grace to get the next millennium off to a good start.

DEA END BOURKE