How Are You Wired? By Charles Stambaugh A few years ago, my son purchased a house that was built in the early 1950’s. It was a one-owner home, and the owner did a number of electrical improvements, himself. Well, I would not call them improvements. Most of the house was wired backwards, with the hot and neutral switched. At many places, thin, two-wire extension cords were in the walls. There were exposed live wires. There was a switch to a big attic fan that was just hanging with a taped fuse and very brittle wire. There was an old panel box in which the breakers would not open the circuit. It took an electrician 80 hours, just to make it safe, and fifteen months later, he is still making corrections. Electric lighting came to Chicago in 1880, when the Palmer House Hotel installed electric lights in time for that year's Republican National Convention. Later that year, in Philadelphia, the first electric lights were strung along a ten-block stretch of Chestnut Street. By 1920, all of the nation's major cities had competing electric companies, each with its own sets of poles and wires. Up to the 1930s, the earliest standardized method of wiring in buildings was knob and tube wiring: single conductors with ceramic tubes, forming protective channels through joists and ceramic knobs. to provide support and air between the wire and the lumber. The first rubber-insulated cable for building wiring was introduced in 1922. Over time, rubber-insulated cables become brittle because of exposure to oxygen. About 1950, PVC insulation and jackets were introduced for residential wiring. New techniques and regulations are constantly improving, making electric power safer and more efficient in our homes. When a person is said to be wired, it often refers to them being hyperactive. Just like a live, broken power line, their actions are bouncing around with lots of noise and excitement, but with few positive results. You try to stay away from this type of person. Drugs, caffeine, and sugar can make a person wired. Being wired can also refer to a person’s normal personality and how they think and act. This is affected by their genes, how they were raised, their environment, what they were taught and their faith. Some may be wired better than others. This means that like my son’s house, all our wiring must be replaced. “But as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” Rom 3:9, 23. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 2:23 “And be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed..” Rom 12:2 “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” John 3:7 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” II Cor. 5:17 *All verses are from the KJV.