Ascension Day: Rising to the Occasion

Happy Ascension Day (apparently 40 days after Easter). I'm not sure how I seem to have missed this date; mushed together with Resurrection without even realizing it. A familiar story can so easily become 'wallpaper'. 

I searched for relevant poems: John Donne; John Keble; Henry Vaughan; Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and more recently, Denise Levertov delivered

Ascension

Stretching Himself as if again,

through downpress of dust

upward, soul giving way

to thread of white, that reaches

for daylight, to open as green

leaf that it is…

Can Ascension

not have been

arduous, almost,

as the return

from Sheol, and

back through the tomb

into breath?

Matter reanimate

now must reliquish

itself, its

human cells,

molecules, five

senses, linear

vision endured

as Man –

the sole

all-encompassing gaze

resumed now,

Eye of Eternity.

Reliquished, earth’s

broken Eden.

Expulsion,

liberation,

last

self-enjoined task

of Incarnation.

He again

Fathering Himself.

Seed-case splitting.

He again

Mothering His birth:

torture and bliss.

– Denise Levertov

And Sue Martin (below left); then a good-friend-and-minister shared Malcolm Guite's poem:

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory

Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.
We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,
Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,
His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed .

 But it feels like something's missing still.

C. S. Lewis talks about the (true) myth of the Christ story, and it made me think; if my dearly departed suddenly appeared in the presence of a bunch of friends, bearing the evidence of what took them out, I'd be a bit bloody amazed. 

The C. S. Lewis quote really made me stop and wonder, how it must have felt for the disciples to be confronted with their beloved Master, who they'd witnessed suffering a traumatic death. All their thoughts and beliefs so brutally shaken, if not destroyed. 

They all went back to their previous jobs - the ones they'd given up to follow this unusual man who'd changed their lives. And then - there He was! In the flesh; talking and laughing, with the scars and wounds still evident. It must have been so unbelievable and yet undeniably true. For 40 days. Then - just as suddenly - He ascended - right in front of them: up into the Heavens! That's what's celebrated on this day: How'd I miss it?! 

And what was that all about? Why? Why 40 days? And where's the poetry of today that expounds on that? That helps to process this astounding Life-Episode. 

It's funny, I'd been thinking a few days previously, about what Jesus had said to the woman at the well about giving her eternal life-giving water. 

Irrepressible; Life-sustaining; Eternal. And yet something so familiar that on one level we can all relate to it. Fresco below is by Gebhard Fugel, 1893. Image right: thought-provoking...

                       

  

It's given me something to ponder, and in the process I found some great art, especially Dali's incredible foreshortened perspective. I'm open for enlightenment, and, on top of everything else, wondering a lot about all the current talk about 'Ascension' for Us & the planet. What is to be made of all that? Is it a natural evolutionary thing - in our following Jesus - the symbolic end of our 40 days after Easter, where we all rise up into the New Heaven? 

I Love Stuart Wilde. But what is he saying here? The latter part sounds like quantum theory, which I lean towards, but don't yet fully understand. Wave and/or Particle. Dead, yet Alive. Always Present, yet Ascended. 

I believe Jesus Christ was God incarnated as a Man to have a human experience, while being one with God, and conscious of God. That He lived a sinless life so that He could take on our sins as a once-for-all sacrifice to cleanse us and absolve us of separation. I believe He is with me Now. I do my utmost to Follow Him - more consciously so since I was made the target of gang-stalking these past few years. He has always been Important, but I want to understand more. 

There are miracles we accept easily(-ish): healing; walking on water; changing water into wine; calming a storm instantly feeding 5,000 with a coupla fish and some loaves. We're back in 'wallpaper' territory - familiar ground. But what about his apparent psychic abilities? though they wouldn't be called that - how was He able to Know things about people? And what about His suddenly being somewhere instantly? People recently have recounted their own experiences of that!!!! Unable to account for apparent time lost on a journey that should have taken hours, buy was completed in minutes?  And what about His appearing with Moses & Elijah? What was that?!! I so would love to know. But am happy to share days in His company; at His feet; by His side, in my unknowing.