Change Your Batteries!

 

I was reading in the family room when I first heard the soft “beep-beep”.  Of course, I ignored it.  It was perhaps a half hour later when I again heard “beep-beep”.  It was this time I had to get up.  I walked around the lower lever of my house, then sat down in the kitchen, waiting for that sound again, and there it was:

Beep-beep!

Where was that from?  Well, it was January, a month when I used to change my smoke detector batteries (that are now guaranteed for 5 years, or is it 10?).  I don’t know when I last changed them and so I changed them all.  And I didn’t hear that sound again.

It was the next afternoon, however, when I heard the soft “beep-beep” again.  What was that?  I was in the kitchen, and the soft sound seemed to have come from a hallway (?).  I looked in the bathroom, the living room and the dining room.  What has batteries in here?  Does everything with a battery beep when it gets low?  (a flashlight?)  Then I saw my furnace thermostat.  That has batteries in it, and the time and temperature were alternately displaying (but didn’t it always do that??).  So, I took that apart and replaced the three AA batteries there.  Then I sat in the living room near the thermostat --- for about two hours.  No more beeps.  I guess that did it.

Until the next morning when I heard the soft “beep-beep” again.  Where the (??#$@$#) is that?  Staying in the family room where I was, I waited.  Then it sounded again.  Once more I went to a room where I thought the sound originated, and heard nothing.  Were mice making that soft noise, and quiet when I was in the room?  Back in the kitchen I again heard “beep-beep”. 

Is there a roadrunner in the house?

I gave up, and added mouse traps to the shopping list.  It was a few hours later while I was playing with my new phone (which Verizon gave me, getting me up to 4G!  Yea!).  While looking at the phone, I glanced at the nook below my kitchen cabinets, and saw my old phone laying there.  The hollow between the cabinets where it lay masked the direction of any sound from it.  Looking at it, I realized that after Verizon had transferred data from it to the new phone, I had not turned off the old one.  Opening the old phone, I saw a flashing hollow battery image on the screen.  I turned the phone off, and then for the heck of it, put it on the charger for a while.

No more beeps. 

See, God answers even unsaid prayers!

It’s a new year.  Change your batteries, or you may be getting beeped!

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Today starts what is called Ordinary Time in the Catholic Church.  Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of Jesus, which marked the start of His public ministry and His Church. 

We often pray for God’s kingdom to come, and many times we think we are speaking of end times: “Thy kingdom come”, as said in the Our Father prayer.  That, however, is not how the Catholic Church understands the Kingdom of God; it began with Christ.  He marked the beginning of God’s kingdom on earth.  He, and his disciples, spread that kingdom, to each individual on earth.  We become part of His kingdom when we accept Him into our hearts.  “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth” is referring to it coming to us, and we participating in it by our actions.  We join the kingdom He started, on earth and (because He died for our sins) in heaven, and by our actions we help His will to be done on earth.

We often think of Revelation and its talk of future coming of God with trepidation, as we might.  We are sinners.  But we are prepared if we confess our sins and renounce them and, convert --- change our lives to live as Jesus taught us, as a part of His family.  We begin living in His kingdom here on earth by following Him.  We have nothing to fear.  There may be a future Second Coming at some time, which only the Father knows, but the coming we see (even in our dreams) is His coming to us now, changing our hearts, conquering the Evil one in and around us, if we choose to be part of Christ’s kingdom, now. 

This is Ordinary Time; it is a time of fighting the evil around us, as Jesus taught us to fight.  I recently joined a new prayer group with people from around the country.  When we prayed, I felt part of a large family, God’s family.  I choose to be a member of that family, praying together. “Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are part of making His kingdom come, His will being done, when we join together in prayer.  “Where two or more are gathered in My name, I will hear their prayer.”

It is the first day or Ordinary Time, but in 68 days it will be the first day of Spring.  Ordinary Time is a time for evangelization, new growth in the Church, spreading of His Kingdom.  Spring is a time for beginning new earthly growth.  Spiritual growth and earthly growth, we are here for both.  And the start is a time of joy, for He is with us always.

Charge up your batteries.  We don’t want to make any soft beeping sound that no one hears.  We want hearers of God’s word to clearly understand where it comes from, and realize it is not an irritant, but telling them something very important.