2:30 a.m.

We had to leave for an early flight this morning, so before I went to bed, I asked our Google pod to wake me at 2:30 a.m. For whatever reason, I have a fairly good internal clock, so I was, more or less, awake by 2:00 a.m. When the alarm went off, I jumped into the shower, and we were both ready to leave before 3:30 a.m.

I need to go back a little bit to the last thing I saw on TV before I went to bed. It was a rerun of a “Star Trek” episode that ended with Captain Kirk having to explain the preamble to the Declaration of Independence to a parallel Native American society. This society, because of war, had reverted to a Native American Indian society from a pre-Civil War perspective.

Now, fast-forward back to the trip to the airport. I was the passenger in this particular car ride, so I had time to contemplate things. The thought that entered my mind was how dependent we are, as a society, on each other. Follow me down my rabbit hole.

To have my Google pod wake me at 2:30 a.m. involved an enormous number of people. The device itself was made in some Asian country involving components from many places. It had to be shipped to the U.S. and eventually to my house. The device needs three things to operate—electricity, a WI-FI network and Google’s cloud computer somewhere. 

The electricity needed was likely generated from natural gas many miles away and fed into the electrical grid, which eventually hooks into my house. The natural gas must be tapped from an underground pocket and transported to its own distribution system, which runs the turbines that generate the electricity. Someone had to create and use the drilling equipment to tap the gas pocket. Well, I could go on, but that touches on the complexity of tapping into the electricity at the outlet in our bedroom.

The next need is a Wi-Fi network. I can’t begin to understand the complexity and cooperation of what makes the internet work, but I do know my access to it starts with a coaxial cable provided (that I pay for) by my cable company to a modem. The modem is hooked up to a router that broadcasts and receives a signal that we have many devices hooked up to. (Access to the internet requires a certain amount of attention by itself, as we have experienced several issues with the cable coming from the pole into our house because we live in the country where critters occasionally chew on things.) There also are all the people and equipment who are behind the scenes keeping that signal available and connecting it to everybody else.

The final need is Google’s cloud service. To me, this is the most amazing part. When I set my alarm, I verbally asked Google to wake me up at 2:30 a.m. The software had to interpret my voice into a command that set an alarm to go off at that time. For those of us old enough to remember manual alarms, just setting an alarm is a complexity I no longer have to deal with much. Regardless, the verbal command had to be interpreted into machine code, where it then was transported to some computer somewhere to set an alarm that, at the appropriate time, had to be conveyed back to my pod to make an irritating sound. In case you want to know, my irritating sound is the whistle from the Disney version of “Robin Hood” (the one where he was a fox), while my wife’s irritating sound is a duck quack. People create and maintain the systems and software that make all that happen.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the interconnectivity of our society.

“Again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” - Ecclesiastes 4:1-12 ESV

Now, rewind to the “Star Trek” episode I watched the night before our trip. The basis for the episode was a society like the U.S. that had been invaded by communists (I assume the Chinese, but it is never explicitly said), who were destroying the fabric of that society and reverting it to a primitive hunter/gatherer type society. I wonder how successful I would be in reverting to the society of my childhood, much less to a primitive hunter/gatherer society.

Imagine what heaven will be like…

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.’” - Revelation 21:3-7, 22-27