While he was still with them, he said:
Don’t leave Jerusalem yet. Wait here for the Father to give you the Holy Spirit, just as I told you he has promised to do. . . . But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power.
After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. Acts 1: 6-8a, 9 (CEV)
Something new is coming,
something incredible,
beyond imagination
and manipulation.
Something
promised.
Well maybe.
That is to say, we hope it is.
He said it would.
We watched him rise up
out on the hill,
wind blustering all around,
and the jagged saw of goodbye
chewing us apart.
Don’t go. Don’t go. We love you so!
And the love
filling us up
and tipping us
over with its force.
And us, breathless and blown,
rolling and tumbling down
the mountain
flung and spinning
out from the core of that splendor.
His Words,
imprinted
on our souls like a bright tattoo.
And the angels saying, Get up. Get going!
He said to wait.
Wait.
There would be more, something else,
spirit he called it,
who will help us remember it all,
help us catch our breath,
and give us legs for such a world, as we have glimpsed.
Oh, why not Him? Why this spirit thing,
when we had a love
we could hold in our arms and look in the eye?
The Father, reaching down into humanity,
snatches back the offspring
of his selfless, effervescent generosity.
Dear God,
you catch up very God of very God,
begotten not made,
by the scruff
of his collar
and draw him back into your joyful dance.
What are you thinking,
cutting in like this, sweeping off with our partner?
Life is eternal – that is good news.
But what to do with the life and the love,
left here as we are, knocking about in the flesh?
Don’t ask of us such vulnerability,
this being clueless, with nothing to hang onto,
suspended between cloud and fire,
dangling
from only a dim memory
and a bright promise.
The Praying Life 