Grounded

"You cannot leave the ground where you are", declared the Controller.

The people crowded toward the place where they would set off up into the clouds.

Beyond them, however, smoke and ash billowed forth.  It was going to be a long wait.  Just as well not to try and go up, though.  Health and safety.

Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because Yahweh descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently . . . Yahweh descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up and Yahweh said to him, "Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see Yahweh and many of them perish."

What a hardship people have suffered in the past week trying to get home with a flying ban because of airborne ash from an unprounouncable Icelandic volcano.

But theirs has been a short wait compared to how long we'd have to wait to get up into God's presence.  It's never going to happen, really.  Good that he came down.