Now I haven’t read an insurance policy in a while but it used to be or at least I’ve always thought it was true that most insurance policies do not cover acts of God. An act of God, presumably, is unpredictable and mean. Sometimes devastating. Funny that we should call a tree falling on a car an act of God. When it comes to insurance, God acts, not in mysterious ways, but in destructive, perhaps wrathful ways. The idea here: there is no protection, no insurance from God’s nasty benders.

Semantics or not, the birth of a child is not an act of God. Catching an elevator, waking up alive, a smile on a dog, the pleasure and fortune of food and shelter, a friend’s kindness, not acts of God. Acts of God are not the millions of banal moments of faith, hope, and charity. A flood, a hurricane, yes, a tsunami – these things are called acts of God. Perhaps it all comes from God’s original deluge. In which case, no amount of insurance could have answered any complaint.

It’s a lucky thing, then, there is more than just the legal sort of insurance. When it comes to acts of God, there is a far greater, more assuring, and more practical insurance, the faith and hope and charity of the world. I started getting bleary eyed, my soul a little canceled as the tsunami death number kept rising and rising. But then I heard a report about how much money had been raised, from individuals, from companies, but what struck me the most, from countries all around the world. And while I had lost the meaning of the dead, I was overwhelmed by the world’s response.

For every action, even an act of God, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to God’s tsunami was what looked like big and wide nearly universal charity and good will. For a part of the world that is often overlooked, countries of the world – like adversarial football teams – came together to pledge their good will. Perhaps it has happened before. Perhaps it has happened as big. But I’ve never seen it, or never paid so close attention.

Meanwhile, four days late, the big boss man from the US finally shows up on TV: “We are helping. Yes. The US is helping.” It’s making me mental. Won’t my American friends tell him to stop talking? Won’t my American friends tell him: TV is not your friend?

SS