Meditations During Advent: The Extraordinary Thing That Is About To Happen

We are sitting in the dusk and the silence of Advent. The breezy chill, the muffled and rustling sounds of the darkening woods surround us.

The theater’s house lights dim and the stage’s footlights come on. The noise and the chattering fade into quiet. We wait in the darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the conductor raises her baton.

In the stillness of Advent, there is far off in the deep distance, a sound so faint “that it may be only the sound of the silence itself.” I hold my breath to listen. I am aware of the beating of my heart.

This extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. The curtain rises.

This is the true story that is the basis for the gift that is the musical “Come From Away.”

The action takes place on the Canadian island of Newfoundland — thousands of miles away from New York City’s World Trade Center, Washington D.C.’s Pentagon, and Pennsylvania’s Somerset County.

With the Federal Aviation Agency immediately closing the United States’ airspace in the hours following the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, Canadian air traffic control stepped in to help. They landed 38 jumbo jets and four military flights bound for the United States at Newfoundland’s Gander International Airport — the nearest sizable airport on the continent - 6,759 passengers and airline crew members arrived in Gander, descending on the small northeastern town and nearly doubling its population of 9,651.

Unable to see footage of the chaos that was unfolding in the U.S., the passengers were not allowed to leave their planes for the first 24 hours or so until customs and security could be put in place to assure no terrorists were on board.

They simply had to wait. They became known as “the plane people.”

Taking only their carry-on luggage with them, “the plane people” were quickly absorbed into the Gander community. Perfect strangers were invited into people’s homes – where meals, beds, and new clothes awaited them. Schools were converted into makeshift shelters. Restaurants and bakeries donated food, while pharmacies provided everything from diapers to medication.

The people of Gander had cooked all night long. The 6,759 passengers and crew members that showed up within a three-hour period, were fed three hot meals a day, every day they were there.

When the travel ban was lifted on Sept. 14, all of “the plane people” slowly returned to their aircrafts and flew back to their original destinations. But Gander surely never left them.

Advent is the true story that is the basis for the gift that is Christmas.

This extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment. The curtain rises.

For an instant, you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath. We will return to our lives, but in this moment, in the waiting and the darkness, hope surely never leaves us.

 

-The Rev. Dr. Bruce Grob