COVID, God, and the Internet
Google Works in Mysterious Ways
I am old enough to remember what life was like before the internet. No email. No zooming. No shopping online. Can you imagine what sheltering in place would be without all this? We rely on the web to get us through each day. Occasionally it can provide a pleasant surprise.
When I was a little girl, my mother told me that God is everywhere. I could not wrap my head around that. How could anyone be everywhere? I saw a movie where Zeus looked down from heaven through some mystical pool. But Earth is round, so how could he see the other side? And what about the rest of the universe?
Several years later, I read a short story that really resonated my doubts: “The Man Who Saw Through Heaven.” by Wilbur Daniel Steele. This is the story of a missionary whose faith was shattered by what an astronomer had him look through a telescope You can check that story out here:
Learning to Surf the Net
In 1998, I got an iMac and a Roadrunner DSL (dismally slow line) internet connection. My first login was mystical, like floating into some nether dimension. I was awed by the tremendous access to such a broad and deep scope of knowledge. If we feeble humans could connect like this, then the omnipresent omniscience of God seemed suddenly plausible.
The Web Explodes Around the World
Fast forward to 2006. My husband and I visited a hospital in Tanzania where we found a niche that we could fill, by teaching medical students and young doctors. Since then, we have returned for a few weeks each year. At first, textbooks were a scarce resource, and many were outdated. The internet transformed everything. Over time, we witnessed an evolution of connectivity that improved medical education in Africa. Students now have immediate access to online textbooks and current scientific literature.
The internet and cellular networks revolutionized the African economy. Virtually everyone now has a cell phone even if they have no electric power in their own homes. A mobile money system enables payments and money transfers, reducing the need for cash and supercharging commerce.
We were supposed to be in Africa right now, teaching at that Tanzanian hospital and attending a Pan-African medical conference in Kenya. COVID-19 ruined those plans. We are stuck on this side of the Atlantic, and the conference was canceled. But the pandemic opened another portal of knowledge for the doctors in Africa: online conferences organized to replace symposia that have been canceled in the United States. And so, while the virus closed many opportunities for sharing knowledge, technology and creativity have provided even more.
Is the Internet Good or Evil.
The answer is yes.
I never read George Orwell’s 1984, although many of my friends did. The thought of someone watching my every move was just too creepy for me. I preferred to read other futuristic dystopian fiction: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, and of course, the Dune Trilogy.
The year 1984 rolled around with no visible sign of Big Brother. Yet the internet and the cloud increasingly soak up and stockpile details about our lives, both personal and public. And now China has taken it to the next level with “Social Credit System” to quantify economic and social “reputation.”
Demerits can be accrued for infractions as minor as playing loud music, eating on public transit, or improperly sorting garbage. Facial recognition is a powerful tool in their monitoring of behavior. While the US government is not overtly engaging in such surveillance, private organizations such as credit bureaus and Google have extensive dossiers on all of us, and they use this information liberally.
A recent occurrence brought this home for me. While visiting our son’s family in Toronto, my husband and I strolled around the neighborhood and were intrigued by a nearby apartment complex under construction. Later we sat with our son and his wife in their kitchen, chatting about how nice it would be for us to have a pied-a-terre near them. Our daughter-in-law’s cell phone beeped with an unsolicited news item about available apartments in the city. I chuckled and said it sounded like Google was spying on us. The stern response from a speaker on the counter was swift: “That is definitely not something that I do.” Like, how dare you accuse us of eavesdropping? Call me paranoid, but this confirmed my resolve not to get a Siri or an Alexa or whatever.
But Google later provided me with another connection that actually made me happy. During this time of sheltering in place, we attend our Georgianna United Methodist Church from our living room. After the service on Palm Sunday, something curious happened: a notification from Google about another online service, from another church, St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Wharton, Texas. Wharton is my hometown. I grew up in that church!
I tuned into that worship service and had another surprise. The pastor, Rev. Michael K. Paul, is African, from the region that is now South Sudan. His accent made me homesick for Tanzania. I contacted him and we had a delightful conversation. He came to America as a religious scholar from the region of South Sudan. He was granted asylum here during the war that tore his country apart. He was interested in the work that Tom and I do in Tanzania. In fact, he is interested in developing a medical mission in South Sudan. Now that conditions are stabilizing there, the people of his village are returning from refugee camps in Uganda and he wants interested in rebuilding his home church.
As the country gradually opens up again, our lives may never be the same as they were before. We will be more vigilant about hygiene and perhaps that will reduce the spread of other illnesses, such as influenza. We will likely become even more likely to shop online. But perhaps the biggest change will be an increased use of the internet, to work remotely from home, and to keep connected with the rest of the world. Our grown children are spread across North America and we now have a Zoom meeting every Sunday evening. That will likely become a tradition in perpetuity.
Is the internet good or bad? It has the potential for both.
