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As do many of the Christian communities in the West, we will mark the Feast of the Ascension together on Sunday even though it officially will be celebrated tomorrow. For many in my Reformed tradition, it is overlooked and even misunderstood. The Feast of the Ascension is not about Jesus rising beyond the clouds in some anti-science, superstitious manner. Rather, it is about how we experience the presence of Christ within and among us beyond the limits of time and space. I have been sitting with the poem by Jane Hirschfield for a week. It doesn't precisely evoke all the layers of mystery in the Ascension, but it does touch upon some. She calls it "Optimism."
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs — all this resinous, unretractable earth.
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs — all this resinous, unretractable earth.
Tomorrow I will edit and rewrite Sunday's message, clean the sun room of all remnants of winter, and get the rest of the bulbs into the warm, sweet earth. I will practice playing "Sweet Jane" a few times in anticipation of Sunday's live-streaming gathering and follow-up with a local church who has asked me to lead their Zoom worship for Pentecost. These are strange and trying times - and I ask for some of Hirschfield's resilence. Now it is time to cook up some salmon marinated in maple syrup and soy sauce.
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