Ascensiontide

by Anna Dill

The period between Ascension Day and Pentecost this year has coincided with the eagerly awaited ‘phase 3’. After months of keeping their distance, having resorted once again to Zoom meetings to make up for the inability to be in each other’s lives, friends and families were reunited at last. If anything, this pandemic has taught me how much I value the physicality of the world around me. How resting my head on a friend’s shoulder for a minute can be a solace. How sitting in the chancel, being able to touch the incense-infused wood of the pews made me feel closer to God than online worship could ever do.

As we stepped further out of lockdown on the 17th, in the delightful hustle and bustle of the city centre, I found myself looking back to the Ascension service I had attended a few days prior. Merton chapel had never seemed so empty which perhaps added to the theatrics of the extraordinary story of Christ’s Ascension, making his sudden absence from the physical world painfully obvious to his disciples then and now. Listening to the choir’s glorious singing, the words of a favourite poet of mine suddenly came back to me:

If we become separated from each other

this evening try to remember the last time

you saw me, and go back and wait for me there.

I promise I won’t be very long,

…

But let’s just say that it’s as good a plan as any.

Just once let’s imagine a word for the memory

that lives beyond the body, that circles

and sets all things alight. For I have

singled you out from the whole world,

and I would — even as this darkness

is falling, even when the night comes

where there are no more words, and the day

comes when there is no more light.

‘Note’ by Leanne O’SULLIVAN

This poem seems to me the perfect encapsulation of the beauty of Ascension. The quietness and nervousness there are in the expectation of an upcoming reunion. The relief one might feel upon hearing the voice of a dear friend after a long absence. Perhaps not unlike Christ’s Word, His memory lives beyond the body, setting all things alight, as we are reminded each time we utter these words at morning prayer:

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

So, surely, waiting here is as good a plan as any.

Anna Dill is a final year undergraduate student who has been worshipping at St Mary's for four years.