An act of God

I am writing this from Dubai en route to Chennai. The past week has been nothing but devastatingly wrecking and devastatingly wonderful. The volcanic ash cloud from Iceland had been severely thwarting my travel plans for the past week and a half. And it did cause immense chaos to thousands of air travel passengers around the world in a scale never imagined before, reminding us all what a small world we live in. A pinprick here and the whole balloon is affected. Interestingly I was finishing my eight month internship at this same time in the UK. So anticipation to meet family was extremely high which heightened the personal crisis for me.
Among all this chaos what was funny was the recurrent occurrence of the phrase ‘act of God’. It was extremely funny as the western world has long abandoned any serious mention of God in the public place. It truly was an act of God. No human force could stand before it. Million-dollar airlines had to bow their knees before an all-powerful Volcano. UK would not have uttered the word ‘God’ so much in recent times, as insurance companies kept reiterating that it was an act of God and they had nothing or little to offer.
On the other hand the fact that I am sitting here in Dubai on the date I was supposed to be here, is in itself an act of God for me. That my flight departed on time, when that was a serious question mark on it for the whole of last week is furthermore an act of God. I remember the song, that God will make a way. By the roadway in the wilderness he will lead me. Rivers in the desert will I see. The roads in Dubai are in fact streaks of pathway between wilderness and the waters in the deserts from the plane above did shine there glimmer between the deserts.
While I am writing this rosy picture, I also remember the thousands of people, who could not find a roadway in the wilderness, who did not see the rivers in the desert for the past ten days. Would I have been writing this blog if I was one of those hundreds of thousands stranded in an international airport without food or lodging? How did God act for them? Rather, why did God NOT act for them? Or was there God through this entire melee? How do we know? If only the ash cloud had moved North instead of South a fraction of the current affected would have been affected. If it had moved in a north-easterly direction not a soul would have fluttered. While it taught us all important lessons about volcanoes and aeronautical engineering, what does it teach about God? What fun could have God possibly had in stopping people attending marriages (some their own), funerals, meeting their beloved ones and scores crying in airports in utter desperation? If it is an act of God, why would he act this way? More questions and fewer answers.
As for me it did teach a lot of gratitude. You never know how much something means to you, until it becomes a matter of life or death to you. While I had become inure to flying, after hopping into a number of planes over the past eight months, for the first time, I am grateful to acknowledge the dynamics behind a flight taking off on time and landing safely. Something as remote as a volcano called Eyjafjallajøkull in Iceland which people would have never heard and would never be able to pronounce even if they wanted to curse it, can wreck or ruin their life in Beijing or Chennai tells us that we are really walking on thin ice daily. And maybe we should not take things for granted. Every blessing, every good thing might be actually an act of God. As for the catastrophes - are they also an act of God…. I don’t know. That would be one of the first questions I would ask Him, when I see Him in person. That is one flight I am pretty much sure will not be disrupted by a two-bit volcano. I will be with my Saviour in the Heavenly heavens.