Faulty connections

A couple of weeks ago I was standing in front of the “Departures” board at Chicago O’Hare airport, searching for my flight—delayed, like many others. “Why are so many flights canceled?” asked the lady standing next to me. Now that she mentioned it, I noticed all the blue “Canceled” notices, several in every column.

My questioner had been in Ecuador for the last month and was a little behind in the news. I had heard the news about the sabotage of air traffic control in Chicago but had failed to apply it. Now the implications of the news were right in front of us: canceled and re-scheduled flights. Almost a week after the sabotage incident, O’Hare and Midway airports were scrambling to get back to normal, hoping “normal” would take no more than two or three weeks to achieve.

The next day, I arrived home but my luggage didn’t—including the notes for this very column, which I had to reconstruct from memory. All this inconvenience happened because of one very upset individual: Brian Howard, an FAA contract worker, employed by Harris Corp. His latest job was modernizing equipment for the air traffic control system in Chicago. On Sept. 26, at about 5 a.m., he entered the Air Route Control Center in Aurora, Ill. (about 40 miles west of downtown Chicago). In the basement of the facility, he apparently smoked a joint, posted a Facebook message, and poured gasoline in strategic places.

Once the fire was blazing, he tried to cut his own throat but didn’t quite succeed; rescue workers found him by following a trail of blood in the facility. The fires were out by a little after 7 a.m., but the damage was done, exposing not only the saboteur but also the failure of the backup system—if, indeed, there ever was a workable backup system.

We hear all the time that “everything is connected,” a popular saying among social reformers and New Age spiritualists. The latter mean it in a vague, pantheistic way; the former in a more utilitarian way, especially when trying to get taxes raised to fund government programs. But the statement is profoundly true—incidents like the air traffic control debacle are both symbolic and emblematic.

God, as a relational being of three persons, created the world to be relational, where things are not just themselves but relationships of other things. Molecular structure, where the bonds are as vital to identity as the particles, is just one example. In the social realm, individuals are not merely themselves, but also siblings, spouses, parents, citizens. “No man is an island,” wrote John Donne. “It is not good for a man to be alone,” said the Lord. Not natural, even; He made us to relate.

In the old days we related primarily through families, but the family has come apart in the last 50 years. There are several reasons why; one reason is that technology has made it possible to feel connected through grids, wires, and signals. It’s an illusion—first, because connectedness is not the same as relationship. Second, because technology is even more vulnerable than human love, as we see whenever someone throws a monkey wrench into the works.

The arsonist Brian Howard was “disgruntled,” apparently because of a pending transfer to Hawaii. Since news like that would send most of us gleefully packing for the beach instead of looking around for matches, there were obviously deeper issues with him—the point is, he couldn’t see beyond himself. He dramatized himself on Facebook, signing off with a suicide note that turned out to be premature. Kind of pathetic, and yet—it’s the same kind of self-idolization that leads the transgender male to sue for the right to play on girls’ sports teams, or the lesbian to insist that her “true self” requires abandoning her husband for another woman. It’s all destructive, pulling apart the web of mutual obligations in order to stand alone. But no one really stands alone, and as the wires cross madly, we’ll be putting out more fires.

Email jcheaney@wng.org