Well, after a long delay the airways are open again between Europe and the U.S. The volcanic ash is slowly dissipating. The world can get back to “normal”. It takes mother nature to make us realize how our world is so dependent on one another. We are so interconnected not just from an economic standpoint but that was evident too. Flower exports in Korea had to be dumped because they couldn’t fly them into European markets because the airports were closed!
But we are interconnected in a deeper way than ever before. In an earlier era when air travel took so much longer not as many of us could fly. In an era when the grand ships plied the waters of the Atlantic like the steamers of old, the many day passage was a rare. For the huddled masses who came steerage escaping the potato famine in Ireland or the pogroms of Europe in 1881 the often squalid conditions of that class of boat travel was hardly something to look forward to. And when the immigrants arrived in America they barely looked back over their shoulders.
But today we head back and forth over the Atlantic to England, France and Germany and the many countries often without much thought. Until something like the volcano in Iceland grounds us.
I think the interconnectedness however is a good thing. It reminds us that we really our a global village. We are not just Frenchmen, American women, English or Dutch. But we are one human family with the nomadic abilities to move freely and easily from place to place.
Yes, this ability to travel the globe has changed our lives-but I think it has changed us for the better.
Welcome back air travel. But let us keep in mind the awesome power of nature and yes, God who made it all!