Getting Loose

Greenford

People have really gone out of their way to be kind to us here in England. 

Ken and Hazel “collected” us from the manse at 6 p.m. to make sure we got to the church by 6:30 p.m.  This was not even their home church, but they were looking out for us!

Sunday night, I was to do the evening prayer service at Greenford Methodist Church.  Of the 10 point circuit, their minister, the Revd. Kip Bennett,
told me that Greenford had by far the largest evening attendance.  And I would say that he is spot on.

A goodly crowd assembled to hear my take “On the Discoveries of Faith.”  Short version?  Our physical senses can tell us lots about this physical, material world.  But they do not give us a clue about the invisible world, or the eternal world, or the spiritual world (and yes, those are three very different things).  Those three are only opened to us through faith.  ‘nuff o dat.

I was very impressed with the A/V system of this small church.  Michael was actually able to play a video I had given him about the reading from Hebrews 11.  I had gotten it from The Work of the People.

I was pleased that I got through in just a hair over an hour. 

Again, one thing that really impresses me is what a singing people these Methodists are.  They put my 9 a.m. crowd back home to shame.  And the melodies they sing are much more difficult than anything we attempt on Sunday mornings!  We had a full liturgy on Sunday evening, and sang six different hymns, and we further sang all of the stanzas!  I need to bring my Director of Music and Fine Arts, Lavena, over here and let her listen and see how all of this is done.

I had been told by the Revd. Jack Matkin, who earlier in his career had spent a year in Barnstaple, England as a Methodist minister, that it was pretty nearly axiomatic that every Methodist service had to have five hymns.  And that has pretty much been the case!

Rachel, from Sierra Leone, was such a jewel.  She attended the service, which was not in her home church, just to make sure that we would know which bus to catch to go back home!  What a loving spirit.  But Graham was splendid to carry us all home anyway!

The Psalter and Altar Calls

In the last three Protestant Episcopal Church services that I have attended (two of them being amongst the largest in the country) neither one of them used the Psalter during the eucharistic services.  That did not dawn on me until I had finished going to the third church.

It's hard for me to go and worship and just be a participant.  I keep looking at my watch trying to sense the pacing.  Are they going to have enough time to get all of the liturgy in without feeling rushed?  And shockingly, with more liturgy and more people than I have got, they get it all in, with the eucharist every Sunday.

The tradition that I come from uses far more of a call-response type of rhythm than what they use, though clearly that is there in their services.  My tradition virtually begs for an altar call each service, and that is foreign to theirs, so some time is used up there.

Yet interestingly, the very service where I have received the most people into membership, I never do an altar call in it.  And the service where I rarely receive members, I virtually always do an altar call there.  Go figure.  I know I still am.

72 Hours

It was initially my fault, I admit it.

In transferring power from one house account to another, I had to pick a termination date.

Rather than deal with a real, live human being, I attempted to do it on-line. After all, that’s more efficient for the company, right? That’s where the world is going, isn’t it? Let’s give old fashioned service a swift kick in the posterior.

I picked the date to turn off power at the house where we are living to be the last possible date that the Internet program would allow. Trouble is, we were still living in the house. And August 1^st rolled around, and out came the Center Point Energy truck (I thought to read the gas meter) and the dude cut off the electricity. (Yeah, as their mission statement says, "Center Point Energy is always there" IF it happens to be on a Monday through Friday).

At first I could not fathom what had happened. It was about 5 in the afternoon, and I knew it seemed quiet, but I did not know what had happened. I turned to look at a clock, and the LED face was blank. I looked at another LED clock, the face was blank. It dawned on me what had happened. It was August 1^st and I had neglected to tell them to keep the power on.

I called Center Point Energy and explained. They are the people who take care of the lines and the hookups and the terminations.

Well they sure were sorry to hear my story but there was nothing they could do or were gonna do till they heard from my service provider un Reliant Energy.  (Look at their ethics statement--committed to doing the right thing--what a scream!)

So I call them up and after several attempts finally got to a resolution team member that had about as much empathy as a stone wall. I explained my plight, food in the freezer, triple digit heat, no fans. Well, . . . I might as well have talked to my dog. Their attitude was loud and clear: "NOT THEIR PROBLEM!" NEXT?

I was shocked. I said, "I have overpaid my account for several months. I have a surplus in my account!"

NOT OUR PROBLEM!

I was incredulous.

They said we don’t work on the weekends. And the implication was, just be glad Monday wasn’t a holiday to boot. They were going to do nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. The null set. What part of NO did I not understand? NOT . . . THEIR . . . PROBLEM!

On top of that, they were going to start charging more than 3¢/kilowatt hour higher once the service got restored and charge me $42 because I wanted it cut back on expeditiously.

I screamed, "But I was your customer just a half hour ago, and on my account is the house to which the service is being transferred to!"

NOT THEIR PROBLEM . . . NEXT?

I swear the people they put on the front lines to interface with the customers have ice in their veins. I could have walked into their office and keeled over dead, and they would have ignored me and taken the next call from the next idiot who just doesn’t seem to understand the rules by which the power companies play.

I can’t help but wonder if this is all the result of deregulation.

I said, "What if my house was burning down? Would you send out a crew to cut the lines?"

Maybe . . . maybe not. NOT THEIR PROBLEM. Just what part of NO did I not get? They were not going to lift a finger to help me. They were not even going to lift a little finger to help me. They had no sympathy for my plight. They would just as soon I interface with an automated call system which would have sent me around in endless loops. Really, I think a machine might have had more compassion for my plight than what I received from either Center Point Energy or un Reliant Energy. They never heard of 24/7 with respect to helping out the customer in his or her hour of need. Theirs is a 40 hour work week, unless of course, there is a major hazard to life. But a Joe Simpleton like me? Pfffffft. They can afford to blow me off. I don’t matter. I’m a nothing. A nobody. If I get mad, there are other power companies out there; go cry on THEIR shoulders. We’ll never miss your business!

And they are right. I used to think that Reliant Energy cared. I used to know some great people who worked for them. But it is a very different, cold world where the bottom line is not service, but the almighty dollar.