Sometimes, when I take my dog for a walk, I find myself lingering in front of a yard a few blocks away.

The patch of yard is small. A high black, wrought iron fence separates the space from the sidewalk. In front of the modest two-flat is a raised brick and dirt display of sorts; part altar and part yard sale, a collection of objects that feel like on odd mix of sacred and silly.

There’s an array of statues; saints, mostly, unpainted madona figures cum Sunday School characters. There are Cupids and sculptures of diminutive ladies in fancy ball gowns.

There are ferns and natural greenery along with metal flowers which act like mini-windmills, the petals moving when there’s a healthy breeze. Bowls of delicate rocks, which stand as a nice counterpoint to large pieces of slate and clay, also occupy the scene.

And then there’s flowing water….

I’ve walked by the yard when the water was turned off and got a totally different feeling, like everything was dead. But when the water is flowing, it‘s magical!  I can stare for a long time at individual objects and the strange unity of how everything in the mish mosh fits together.

Looking at this yard scene, comical and spiritual, is like witnessing a Rube Goldberg invention. It’s a lesson on how things work, how everything is connected.

I guess in the throes of the pandemic and social change, and what seems like insurmountable global challenges related to distribution of resources, it’s nice to think that there is a system of relationships, a structure for how things are supposed to work.

We hear about a basic level of connectedness every day on the evening news in regular reporting on the pandemic. There’s nothing like a set of charts and graphs to show how people are connected by encounters they have with each other, even the air they breathe.

I saw a news segment that explained how a single person from Kansas, who contracted COVID, spawned ninety-one cases!

Past associations with connectedness often relate to networking events and quickly communicating your background and situation so you can explore mutual needs.

My father used to play a type of social game, a form of Twenty Questions that gave a nod to Six Degrees of Separation principles. In our family, we called the game “Jewish Geography.”

My dad was convinced that if he engaged someone he just met, and asked questions like “Where are you from?”  “What do you do for a living?” ” What church or synagogue do you go to?”  they would discover that at least one person showed up in the both of their circles.

I suppose. this is managed by LinkedIn and facebook these days. In some ways, online platforms are more thorough (they even remember birthdays and anniversaries for you), but the current state of our connectedness is woefully less conscious. People don’t even know HOW they’re related to others.

People want to make connections all the time. Sometimes, beliefs result from misunderstandings of how things are connected.

A girl that was not asked to a high school dance might conclude, wrongly, that a man wouldn’t want to buy her a drink when she’s thirty. Politicians will spend a lot of messaging money to convince people that they are threatened by immigrants when statistics will show that towns with large, stable immigrant communities often have lower crime rates.

There are connections at the consciousness level. It thrills most people to get a call from someone they’re thinking about, or see that the exact thing they go to the store for is on sale.

I guess there’s a new Netflix series, Connected, produced by a science journalist. It explores how surprising things are related. They have episodes on the secrets of poop and how dust supports life.

I haven’t seen the show yet, but I imagine it provides a feeling that’s similar to what I get when I observe the kinetic, wind and water-powered yard display in my neighborhood.

I’ll watch water slowly fill up a small copper kettle. When it reaches a certain weight, the kettle tilts and a stream spills onto a flume, kind of like a water ride at Disneyland. The current, following the gentle descent of the channel, empties into a basin and triggers a water wheel to revolve. Rivulets eventually moisten the dirt around a cluster of Black-Eyed Susans.

There is wonderment here. And hope. It’s hard not to believe that connectedness, which had accounted for a lot of pain and strife as of late, will also be at the heart of a way to move forward.

Seeing something that encourages an appreciation for how everything is connected is no small thing.