There aren't enough trees in this neighbourhood, but at night, when the lights in the street reflect in the wet pavement after a summer's rain, it is beautiful.

And when the cars whisper, rush and swish past our street down Somerset, they can be confused with the sound of angels' wings rustling,

and the moving shadows of leaves on a patch of shining asphalt could be mistaken for their movements as they hover in their ministrations,

gently nudging us back from the edges of forgetfulness and despair.

the in be tween

This ascension I have been unaccountably filled with thoughts about the spiritual father I lost this year. My Bishop reminded me that I have not lost Papa John, that Papa John's proximity to God makes him more close to me, more available to me in prayer, than he was while still alive with us. This has been so difficult to accept when the blessing of his immediate presence is still so real in my memory, more real, though in my memory, than my faith in his presence with us through Christ. I imagine some of my feelings must be like what some of the disciples experienced: I have so many questions I still hadn't had a chance to ask! Who else can I tell this to, who will understand and know exactly what to say? It doesn't feel the same without him here. How will I continue to grow, to change, to be healed, without seeing his face, feeling his love, exeriencing his embrace?

In a recent sermon one of our priests described the two icons on either side of the royal doors as the Icon of Christ's First Coming (Theotokos/Incarnation) and the Icon of Christ's Second Coming (Christ Pantocrator). We enter into worship between those two realities: at the altar where we celebrate Christ's mystical presence with us now, in the Holy Eucharist.

Perhaps if I keep alive my longing, keep receiving Communion, keep waiting for the Lord (more than the watchmen wait for the morning)...perhaps then I will begin to understand.

All this puts the coming of the Holy Spirit in a fresh light for me, and I understand in a new way why He is called the Comforter.

After Ascension, Before Pentecost.

My good friend Shannon (of "little" fame) sent me this a few days ago. It is a meditation she shared during one of the Ascension services at her Anglican church. I read it just as I was realizing the bearing of my most recent post on this mysterious time of the liturgical year.

“The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.”

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen +

Here on this evening of the feast of the ascension it is important that we understand our bereavement of the Son of God.

When Christ withdrew into heaven, the disciples must have been left in a state of joyous sorrow. They had lost Him once to death, and now again, to glory. Surely they must have known their cups to be full in those 40 days after the Resurrection. To wake every morning with the risen Christ among them, to have the revelation of God in human person, The Son, present with them, their friend and their hope.

But when Christ withdrew, how could they not be bereft, even with angels assuring them of His return, even with the promise of the coming of a comforter?

Some of us may know what it is to loose our connection to one who, for us, holds the Wisdom, a spiritual Father, mother, mentor or even a friend. When our path is no longer illumined by their presence, their teaching or their personal encouragement to us—we miss them sorely and wonder how we will know the light of wisdom in our hearts again.

And so how can this not be also with the disciples who beheld the human face of God?

Between the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost marks this place of absence, and it is good if we pause here, for as Father Snook said in his sermon last Thursday, this place of pain is the birth place of faith. We do not need the coming of a comforter unless we know we are bereft God.

I quote a sermon from Father Crouse:

What does the Ascension mean? Remember that incident in the Easter garden, when Mary Magdalene longs to embrace the risen Lord? And he says "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to the Father." (John 20.17) The point is this: those who follow him must be weaned from earthly hopes and expectations. The earthly, the fleshly, must be transformed, transfigured, so that we see its true reality as spiritual. In that sense, he must depart from us, and it is expedient that he go away. "The flesh profiteth nothing," he tells us, "the words I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6.63) In the travail of earthly life, we must give birth to faith, a faith which knows God as Spirit. And thus he returns to us in the power of the Spirit, and that is Pentecost.

With the coming of the Holy Spirit begins a new order.

In this empty space I know my poverty. In the light of the glory of his ascension, I can know how insignificant I am, relinquishing what I have known by natural intellect. This is the sobriety, I pray for, that I might watch unto prayer. Amen+

the heart's desire

I went into the church tonight.

Vespers had been over for some time and the church was empty and dark except for a faint yellow flicker of a candle on the altar, and some patches of varying blue light on the east side of the arched ceiling, a streetlight refracting through the stained glass windows.
I brought in a candle and lit a few of the others over the icon of the Ascension, and the icons of Christ and Mary.

I sat for a long time in the semi darkness, in the silence with just the whirring of the fans overhead.

It is hard to remember the last time I felt this safe to enjoy darkness and silence in such a large space, a space that is usually public. I gradually became bold enough to speak my prayers into the spacious darkness. The sound of keys in car doors outside and distant laughter from restaurant goers in the street added to the feeling of sanctuary within, beneath the arched roof.

I was sitting on a pew at the back of the large open space we have between the altar and the pews. The emptiness of the sanctuary, and the darkness made it feel as though I were really quite near the icons before which I had lit candles, and the dark stretch in between felt more like a link, like connective tissue, than a distance or a separation. In the centre of the icon of Christ, instead of His face, I could see only the glow reflected from the candle I had lit.


I have long avoided this sort of solitude with my thoughts, with the true prayers of my heart.

It seems that this solitude is necessary to discover the true prayers of my heart, and to be able to pray them.

"Cast your burdens upon the Lord," Father John said today during confession.

I'm funny. I don't want to "burden" or "bother" God with all my petty woes and complaints. Instead I grumble to everyone else about my troubles and frustrations.
I've had it all backwards!

"Grant me compassion for another's troubles
and courage for my own!"


I discovered something. It is possible to feel a deep sorrow and longing, not out of shame, not out of distress. It is possible to weep with longing for Jesus Christ. Because of missing Him. Because it has been such a long time since I've "seen" Him. The business and burdens of life, my petty preoccupation with inner and outer troubles, have kept me from tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. Have kept me from the sweet and painful knowledge of His nearness and His farness. Oh, how we need Him to change us! How we need Him to heal us! How I want to be able to touch the hem of his garment; how I want to weep on his feet!

I refrain from love, because it hurts. When I allow myself to feel all the love I am capable of for Matthew, it comes together with the knowledge that I do not know for how long I have him near me. It comes together with the knowledge of all the sinful brokenness that still keeps us from loving and encountering each other fully and purely and being revealed to one another completely. The closer we come to one another, the more keenly I am aware of what still holds us back.

The early church must have been so aware of this hurt, this sweet pain, this paradox of Christ's presence and absence, of longing for His return, and the consolation of His presence through the Holy Spirit, in the breaking of the bread, in their fellowship in His name.

Is it out of this that they prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus!"?

Somehow this time of waiting is special, His absent presence with us even better, He said, because we have the Holy Spirit. How? Is it because, in our longing, we are stretched to grow toward Him, like daisies straining their little green stems so taut towards the far sky? Is it because, in suffering we are purified?

How will I grow, how will I be purified, when I do so much to avoid this good suffering, and the feeling of lack? I numb myself with little activities to fill up my potential solitude--puzzles and games on our laptop, complaining and self-pity, inane conversations with unsuspecting people over whatever jumps into my head to ramble about.

I went into the house of prayer and I could take none of this with me. Nothing but myself, my thoughts, and the bodily sensations and impulses that come, for me, when my heart's radar is casting about for the right frequency for prayer.

A sudden desire to be weightless, to be lifted from the ground.

"Lift me up!"

"Lift me up!"

A desire to curl up on the floor at the foot of the icon and stay there, and sleep.

A thirst.

Homesickness for something, I can never quite put my finger on.

Come, Lord Jesus!