December 13, 2016

Jupiter rising, Peace descending

“All I want for Christmas is some peace and quiet!”. It’s a common cry, often uttered in exasperation during December and leading up to Christmas day.

December brings a flurry of messages from the media, calling us to do more, to buy more. So off shopping we go, in search of the perfect gift for those special people in our lives. Evenings and weekends become filled with parties, musical concerts, and the Nutcracker ballet. Time and money are poured out in great quantities, with each year trying to top the previous one. “More is better” fills our minds and drives us furiously onward in the holiday season.

But with time passing, a weariness sets in and the above cry echoes in our hearts and minds with a plea for quiet, a desire for calm.

Flight crews live all these things too. We are not immune to them. We move fast and often do so at night. Those presents, boxes, and containers galore move through the evening sky with measured precision, arriving at destinations to be sorted, passed on to trucks, driven to yet another sort station, and then finally to delivery and a waiting person.

How does it work? One example comes to mind during a trip from Chicago to Anchorage. The crew arrives a few days earlier and is in position for a trip. The day arrives when crew and plane get together for a journey. It’s nighttime and the crew leaves the hotel at 1:30AM. A hotel driver is tasked with taking the crew of three to the airport and cargo handler. The driver has other duties but will make time for the crew’s transport. Off we go, into the night chill and snow.

And snow it does! The first big snow of the season has started in the afternoon and accumulations measured in inches grow with passing hours. It’s also quiet out after midnight, even at a suburb near a large city. The elements of busyness and quiet contrast create the background for the evening’s flight, giving the crew a stage to perform on.

A short fifteen-minute ride gets the shuttle to the cargo office. From there the crew is to exit, get a ride to the airplane ramp which is located ten minutes away. But the plane is still in the air. We crew sit inside the warm hotel shuttle bus and wait for time to pass. We also wonder why we are summoned so early and no plane available? How long will we wait? Does someone know what’s going on?

An hour and a quarter pass before the plane is parked and the next driver and van are available to get to the ramp. The hotel driver has greatly exceeded their time away and feels uncomfortable at neglecting other duties. We crew note this and offer a tip for waiting for us. The gratuity is accepted with thanks. We crew will let the driver’s manager know of the extra effort extended on our behalf, and our sincere thanks.

A ten-minute ride to the cargo ramp passes and then we exit the warm van into night’s chill and snow. The plane is full of inbound cargo and no unloading is happening. We crew are greatly puzzled, believing that the plane would be loaded and ready to go! But not so.

In fact, another two hours will pass before the ground staff is available to begin unloading. Our long day is becoming longer. Our sleep pattern is disrupted before we started the trip. We settle in and wait, catching some rest.

Unloading begins, cargo moves off the plane, to a loading machine, then onto carts and taken to a semi- truck. This goes on for an hour and then stops. Another semi-truck is needed but is not at the ramp. We will have to wait and two more hours pass.

Finally, the unloading continues. By now there are four semi-trucks with outbound cargo waiting to be loaded. Ground handler demands are high. We are just one of several planes needing ground handling. Priorities are made by the handler’s management and our plane is a low priority. Another plane arrives and the handler’s leave to unload it. We sit some more, waiting for their return.

Another two hours pass and the loaders return for a while. But then they time-out and go home. No replacement staff arrive and we crew sit in puzzlement. Our long duty day becomes longer. The trip’s departure is questionable.

Finally, we crew call the scheduling department, report our total time of fourteen hours since leaving the hotel. The plane is unloaded, it will need to be pushed back from the ramp, and then de-iced. Our message is well-received and we are told to go back to the hotel. Another standby crew will take the plane to Anchorage.

Then the loaders return. We tell them that we need to go to the cargo office and then back to the hotel. The reply is, “Do you still want to have the cargo finished loading?” It’s an amusing question to ask the very tired crew. Our job is done. What happens next is someone else’s responsibility. We leave and get back to the hotel, now fifteen hours after leaving.

The next day we learn that the plane did get out, about seven hours after we left. But at Anchorage there is leaking cargo fluid. This stops the trip until the leaking material can be identified and the spillage contained. We hope this is a minor problem, but are concerned that it could affect the plane’s interior and a long delay. An inspection is made and the plane passes. The trip continues. The story draws near an end.

Flying after midnight finds a bright point of light in the eastern sky. What is this object with bright glow and fascination to an observer? Could it be a beacon guiding the way to a destination? Shepherds of 2,000 years ago saw a point of light in the east and followed it to a small town, a manger, and joined a young couple and their birth of a son. The Christ child, a child of peace.

Astronomy references identify our point of light as the large planet Jupiter. It is a gas giant, one that takes light 36 minutes to travel from the earth to Jupiter. The planet rises in the early morning as we glide through the cold December sky. All is calm, all is quiet. The surroundings are in stark contrast to the busyness below, and a welcome change for weary travelers.

Pondering the peace gives hope, and we ask how we can bring hope to the world. It’s a message from a Sunday worship service and the content is shared with the reader of this story.

[1] “You have to give up something, to let go of something, to get peace. A quote is shared:

“We must think differently, look at things in a different way. Peace requires a world of new concepts, new definitions. —Yi_hak Rabin “

God calls each one of us. You don’t have to have the gift of lesson planning, or craft making, to be an instrument of peace.”

Jupiter rising. A peace descending upon the earth. How are you called to be a messenger of peace?

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[1] Journey in Peace, 04December 2016, Reverend Jessica Hauser Brydon, Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian church, Bloomfield Hills, MI, https://vimeo.com/194237311