When Evening Drops the Curtain

Man's best friend. Dogs? Nope. Computers.

Think about how dependent we are on computers. Computers control our money and our privacy. Computers control access to our vehicles and homes. Computers can allow or disallow us to move within our city or country or around the world. Computers limit our ability and reduce our need to communicate.

The debit machines were down at Wal-mart today and it was chaos. Frantic mothers with heaps of Christmas presents and no way to pay for them harassed innocent cashiers who were just as confused as everyone else, while others lined up at the portable atm machine that would eventually run out of cash.

Can you imagine if all the computers in the world stoped working? We live in a society that has forgotten how to survive on its own.

My parents and I were talking yesterday, and they told me that my Nanny White (yes, the smart, poetic, prophetic one who is pretty much my hero) always thought that computers (or Bill Gates?) were the anti-Christ. My father's mother died almost five years ago, and spent her last years as a very sick woman, but even she could see how frighteningly consuming technology is proving to be.

I'm sure I've never completely understood the idea of the Apocalypse and the anti-Christ. I always thought that the anit-Christ had to be a person.

But the more I think about how much faith we've placed in technology, the more I realize that my nanny was most definitely a wise, wise woman . . .