Living on a relatively small bridgeless island comes with many trade-offs. Whereas people on the mainland can select from any number of wireless providers for their cell phones, only one national carrier has a cell tower on Daufuskie, so that becomes the provider for almost all who live here full time. Similarly, while some places have multiple options for cable television/high speed internet, we only have one fiber optic network available to us. We don’t begrudge the lack of options, because we are simply grateful that we have access to those communications networks that are so vital to our daily lives.
What most people here didn’t realize until Wednesday was that the two services are connected. We have one trunk line that runs underneath Calibogue Sound, bringing the fiber optic line from Hilton Head to Daufuskie, and that fiber optic line is connected to our one cell phone tower on the island. When something happens to sever that single connection that links us to the technology infrastructure on the mainland, we lose both cell service and internet. That is the point when we become aware of precisely how much of our lives today depend upon the latest communications technology. Remote workers were unable to connect with their business partners. Remote learners were unable to connect with their education providers. Local businesses were unable to connect with their credit card processors. People who have remote security devices were unable to connect with those services. Phone calls and text messages didn’t go through. Streaming services were unavailable. Social media sites were unreachable. Sure, we may poke fun at others (and ourselves) for spending too much time staring into little screens, but those screens have become far more than just entertainment for us. They represent connectivity, and our connectivity was severed. We could still do most of the things that we were doing ten or twenty years ago, so we could still fix meals, enjoy the natural beauty of our island, and spend time with our neighbors. But if you had something that absolutely required communication with the outside world, you just had to wait.
For all of the importance of a communications connection, there is a connection of far greater importance. In the 15th Chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that he is the vine, and that those who are connected to him can bring forth good fruit, but those who are not connected can do nothing good. It isn’t that people detached from the vine of Jesus are incapable of doing anything, but without being connected to the one source of truth and goodness, the resulting life will be far less than it was meant to be. Of greater significance is the eternal implication of being either connected to Jesus or not. No matter what disrupts our communications connections, the issue is temporary. Our connection with Jesus, however, is eternal.
My prayer is that your communications connections are not disrupted today, but that you also realize that your connection with Jesus is far more important.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron