Hacking In To Heaven

There are no atheists in foxholes, or when the power goes out.

Perhaps it should be enough to make a believer out of me.  Or enough to scare me away from one of my bad habits.

Perhaps it was just an incredible coincidence.  As a scientific thinker, I believe that coincidences happen all the time.  Humans get a lot of mileage out of ascribing deep meaning and connectivity to things that actually have no relationship.

For example, when Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, some of my southern friends said, “That is the Hand of God, punishing those heathens for being liberal atheists.”

They did not have an answer when I pointed out that my 92 year old aunt had a harrowing 5 days without electricity, and she happens to be a conservative Catholic who still goes to Mass whenever her arthritis allows.

So there I was, earlier today, bashing conservatives on an internet forum.  That is a nasty, thankless job, but someone has to do it.

The conversation drifted toward the rumor that this website will soon start charging a subscription.  Most of the commenters, myself included, would simply go to another site in this event.  The owners are delusional if they think their mediocre website is worth paying for.

My previous comment had been, “All we need is for one of the web heads who comment here to set up a mirrored site.  He would pay for the subscription, then the rest of us could comment on the mirrored site for free.”

This creates a cat and mouse game for the site’s security administrator.  They have to try to hunt down the perpetrator and shut down the pirate site.  But people like me are the ones who trained people like that.  I may have taught them everything they know.  I am certain I did not teach them everything I know.  And I am always learning new things.

It is actually a simple matter for the rabbit to stay one step ahead of the hounds.  You need a plan and the knowledge of the hardware and software that is thought of as the world wide web.

So if some halfway trained network security administrator thinks he is sending a shutdown message to my IP address, he might get a bit of a surprise when that message is redirected back to one of his servers.  He better hope he set that root password to something too complex for my encryption buster.

Next, another commenter challenged me.  He doubted I have such skills.  I do not blame him.  Anyone can claim to be anything on the internet.  Check out some of my other short stories for evidence of that.

That is of no consequence to me.  I know what I know.  I do not need to prove it to anyone.

The reply I typed was this:

“Son, I know you don’t know me.  I can’t prove a thing to you.  So all I will say is this.  Even God cannot keep me out if I decide to hack into www.Heaven.com.”

When I finished typing, I hit Send.  But I have no idea if the message got posted.  At that exact instant, the electricity went out at my house.  I called my mother on my cell phone, she is a few miles away.  No power at her place.

Funny thing, power outages always happen during bad weather.  Lightning strikes a transformer, or high winds blow a tree down on the lines.  Today the weather was warm, sunny, and zero wind.

I am writing this on the back porch, the old fashioned way.  With a notebook and a Bic pen.  In my brief career as a writer, this is a first for me.  I’ll have to try it again.

So was the power outage a coincidence?  Or was God telling me he can keep me off of his website any time He wants?

Reviews

[avant security guard]

another good read
personally, I think NASA should try to find the Kingdom of Heaven
am I out of it?
yeah, I know--whatever
keep up the good work
please don't hack me--I'm just a hack