Re-Charging – in more ways than one.

Can’t get started today! Batteries are flat. My brain has been groping for a tiny spark that will launch an idea my mind can fan into something worthwhile.
While on the subject of batteries, I’ve had a bad run lately. And I don’t even own an electric car!
I have been reading a lot about electric cars though – how they will replace every i.c.e (internal combustion engine) within a decade or so. But if my recent experience is anything to go by, I’m rather dreading that. For a start, batteries generally are expensive. And the Lithium-Ion ones they use so many of in these electric cars are eye-wateringly expensive.
But even the tiny ones that power a huge range of home and garden tools these days cost one-and-a-half arms and a couple of long legs. Sifting through hardware cattle-dogs is a case in point.

There, glossy photos of desirable cordless-electric tools carry price-tags designed to capture attention – until a tiny scrap of text in the tiniest font possible whispers: ‘Skin Only’. I used to wonder what that actually meant. Did one have to purchase the plastic outer cover on the drill or other tool separately? And how can one safely use a drill with the inner workings exposed? It was then that I discovered the sneaky manufacturers and retailers are playing down the fact that the drill is useless without a super-expensive battery – and a charger to boot! Lots of extra-cost of course!!
Nearly everything these days is cordless! And the batteries that power them are no more reliable than batteries of old! These deceptively tiny power-houses can mischievously and arbitrarily decide to stop delivering the required stream of electrons on a whim – at the most inconvenient times! But the retailers have an answer to that. Buy more than one battery. Ouch! Most of us will need to take out a second mortgage to do that! I did purchase a couple of these small rechargeable batteries for my drill/saw/angle-grinder/sander collection recently. And they cost as much as one of the two massive batteries that together kick-start our motor-home bus! (I know. I’ve just bought two!) Go figure!

Anyway, like it or lump it, we’re becoming firmly wedded to these rechargeable power sources, and if the switch to renewable energy to power our homes becomes entrenched, we’re also going to need an old-style outdoor-dunny-sized battery to keep the lights on and fridge running, and our electronic devices charged.

All of this serves to trigger the thought that keeping batteries fully-charged is both a necessity and eminently sensible. And I’m not just thinking in terms of wet or dry-cell power sources that we find and need around the home. I’m thinking of those proverbial mental batteries I alluded to at the beginning – the ones that enable us to function effectively by keeping us mentally alert. And I’m thinking of those spiritual batteries that, left to discharge and never re-charged, will quickly render a connection with our creator-God, useless. It really is crucial to keep our spiritual batteries fully charged in order to maintain high-voltage contact with the Prime-Mover of the universe – who ultimately powers our lives. Only thus can we function as our Maker intended.
As the old song urges: “Telephone to glory, O what joy divine…” But if our battery’s flat?