Since I was 12 years old, I have wanted to be an Engineer. I earned my degree in Engineering and worked as a project engineer on bridges in the Florida Keys that later worked 35- years as a Grid Engineer with AP&L (now ENTERGY) with line crews. Major part of my work involved Physics and mathematics that was a major part of my major in high school and college.
As a Grid Engineer, you learn to respect something that you can’t see or smell, but the power of its effects is unmistakable. The conductors that are stranded between towers and structures carry voltage that is turbocharged by the amps. Just to give you some reference of the power of these lines carry, they carry 3000 Amps, but it only takes 0.008 amps (8 milliamps) to put you in the morgue, that I have witnessed more than I wanted to experience.
As luck would have it, this line featured below crossed the Tallahatchie River near where Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge in northeast part of Mississippi in Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 hit song, Ode to Billie Joe. And it was a hot summer day this day as well:
The Gravity of the Subject
Another force that we can’t see or smell is gravity, but its effects are also unmistakable. Besides being a Grid Engineer, I also flew aerial patrols (logged 550 flight hours per year) and was chairman of the Fall Protection Committee of our company. It only takes 6 feet to inflect a serious injury on a worker in a fall. We worked as high as 400 feet. In the photograph above, we are 85 feet above the terrain, I’m the dude in the middle testing out a new horizontal lifeline that I developed for our crews.
Persistence, Confidence, Belief and an Idea
Something else that can’t be seen, or smell or matter of fact tastes is persistence, confidence, belief, and an idea. But we know from history what impact these have on outcomes. We only have to marvel at the electronic age or even sports to see the impact of these factors have in our lives.
Then to say PRAYER is a myth or have no power is to say that these other factors of nature, or form of energies, in our life have no power just because we can’t see, smell, or taste them. We only have to just drop 5 Lb. dumbbell on our foot or toe to feel the effects of gravity from height of our waist. Just like we can’t underestimate nature, because if you do, you will lose. The POWER of PRAYER is just as real as these natural forces are in our lives.
What we are able to achieve starts with an idea and/or a belief that is combined with True Grit of persistence and confidence (our Faith), that are the origins of reality. Just like power being transmitted along a series of conductors in a form of energy, so is our FAITH and PRAYERS is in our lives.
We all have free will; it is what we do with that free will that determines the outcome of our efforts. Go tell a football team that is ready to take a field that their motivation, confidence, and trusting in their training doesn’t matter.
Just look at the forces of momentum that can swing one way or another in moments. A team that doesn’t have these essentials elements will lose. If you have seen the movie Rudy where Coach Yonto, played by Ron Dean, tells the varsity football team of Notre Dame, that if they possessed just half the passion and heart that Rudy did, they would be National Champions. What a man thinks in his Heart, so is he.
If you played competitive sports at a high level or been in firefight before, you know all too well the power of what we call the Quiet Strength consisting of a strong belief combined with True Grit of persistence and confidence (or our Faith), that allow us to persevere through our dark valleys.
Those like in our media or government that question prayer since the horrific school shooting in Minnesota where our Media and government officials editorialize prayer as mythology have NOT played sports nor been in firefight before. Prayer is the only thing that one can hold onto and trust during our valleys of evil.
