May 18th, 2023 is Ascension day, not one that I grew up with or one that many protestants are familiar with. This is the fortieth day after Easter Sunday and we celebrate the ascension of Christ into heaven. You will find the Biblical accounts of the Ascension in Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:19-20, Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:6-11.
The day is also, and in some ways more importantly, a celebration of the new creation that Jesus’ resurrection brought into being. It seems such an appropriate celebration for those of us who are interested in sustainability and creation care. I prefer to focus on this imagery because so much of the language of ascent seems to focus more on the triumphalism of a militaristic parade rather than the ascent of a servant king whose advocacy will restore and renew all things.
In Sweden people go into the woods very early in the morning to hear the birds at sunrise. It is said to be good luck if a cuckoo is heard from the east or west. What beautiful imagery to carry with us for the rest of the season until Pentecost. I think this would be a wonderful tradition to incorporate in our Ascension Day celebrations. Go out into the woods, your local park or even the beach early in the morning. Listen to the birds singing the dawn chorus. Notice the beautiful sound that rises like a stream of praise and worship to God.
In Indonesia, in spite of the fact that 80% of the population are Muslim, Ascension Day is a public holiday, a day to go to church for Christians, a day to rest and enjoy life for Muslims.
I do not want to deny the exultant triumph of our risen Lord and the freedom his ascent has brought us. For the disciples this must have been an amazing day. They knew Jesus was alive. They knew he was the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, the long-promised Messiah. They knew that they would see him again when he returned, as he had assured them that he would, at the end of time and the day of resurrection. They knew that he still loved them, simply because he appeared to them after he rose from the grave and, most importantly, he had entrusted his mission on earth to them. They had begun to comprehend the nature of God’s love and power; so should we.
Ascension Day Customs
Various customs are associated with this day. In England, processions used to take place with a banner at the head showing a lion and a dragon at the end, symbolising Christ’s victory over the devil. In some churches the Ascension was re-enacted by lifting the figure of Christ through an opening in the roof of the church.
The Chapel of the Ascension in Walsingham, Norfolk, shows Jesus’ feet projecting from the ceiling.
Ascension Day Walsingham
Another English tradition – beating the bounds – the reaffirming of parish boundaries is a great to reaffirm, possibly as a prayer walk so think of adding it to your Ascension Day observances.
Celebrating Ascension Day at Home/with Kids
- Looking for ways to celebrate with kids? EverThineHome.com and BuildFaith.org have great ideas!
- Most of the resources listed below can also be used or adapted for your at home worship on Ascension Day.
Paul Neeley and Godspace Resources
A couple of years ago, I posted this very comprehensive and helpful list from Paul Neeley for Ascension day. Here are a few more resources he has added since:
- Ascension Reflections (sonnet, song, painting, litany, theology & more!)
- 4 Ascension Artworks from India
A couple more of my own prayers:
Here are some more of my favourite resources:
The United Methodist Church has some great resources. I love the exultant note of this prayer from Rev. Marilyn E. Thornton the Lead Editor for African American,
One: Let us gather as they gathered on the Mount of Olivet.
Let us remember the teachings of the law, psalms, and prophets.Many: Ride on King Jesus, no one can hinder you!
Here is another from the reformed tradition With A Shout
And this by David Diephouse who teaches history at Calvin College
Our God goes up with shouts of joy!
Our Lord ascends to the sound of trumpets!
All: Sing praises to our God, sing praises!
Sing praises, sing praises to our King!
The Almighty rides in triumph.
The Almighty leads captivity captive.
Who shouts for joy? Who blows the trumpet?
The hosts of heaven sing the honor of his name;
they praise him with an endless alleluia.
And this prayer from the Catholic service for Ascension Day
God our Father,
make us joyful in the ascension of your Son Jesus Christ.
May we follow him into the new creation,
for his ascension is our glory and our hope.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
- As usual John van de Laar at sacredise.com has some great resources – prayers, liturgies, even suggestions for hymns and youtube videos. You can check them out here.
- Here is a good set of videos/loops from re:Worship
- Don’t forget to check out textweek.com which has a very comprehensive list of resources for celebrating Ascension Day
Obviously there are lots of other great resources out there too so if you have found something that is particularly helpful please leave a link in the comments below.
Here are some more images of the Ascension:
Jesus asscensions scene. Golded mosaic from Neamt Monastery, Romania
Ribe Cathedral. Pulpit ( 1597 ): Ascension of Christ with the latin inscription “Omnes traham ad me ipsum” ( All people I will draw to myself ) via wikimedia.
Ascension – Jesusmafa
By Michael Moore —
As Christine Aroney-Sine reminds us in her most recent book The Gift of Wonder: Creative Practices for Delighting in God, God can be found in the most creative and often unusual places if we simply slow down and look with the eyes of our heart. In the hurry and scurry of the post-Holy Week and Easter season for this particular Padre, I have had to constantly remind myself to slow down and simply be still. One way that Denise and I have done that is by taking intentional time to simply “be” in our back yard, the Rocky Mountain National Park. One thing that we often notice is how so many visitors to the park are in such a hurry to check something off of their list. They rush up a particular trail or climb a particular peak simply to say they have done it. One of my dear parishioners who died this past March used to volunteer a lot at the Estes Park Visitor’s Center. He told me a story once about a visitor who came in and asked him a question. “I only have an hour to see the sights. What can you recommend for me?” His reply was, “Unfortunately, I can simply recommend that you need more than an hour to explore and savor this area.”
On May 3rd, we took an opportunity to go into Rocky for a bit of a wander. We came across this yearling Bull Moose when Denise just happened to see him and his Mama down in a valley off the road. We pulled over into a pullout, grabbed our cameras, and made our way to visit Mama and her Yearling. Just as we had come across this Yearling’s Father the previous October during an intentionally slow hike and spent some sacred time with him, we were able to spend sacred time with this Mama and Child. One young couple stopped because they saw us down in the valley. The four of us enjoyed this time and the couple remarked that it was sad that so many people drove by so quickly that they failed to notice what we had discovered. Unfortunately, the peace didn’t last long as groups of visitors pulled over and began making a bit of a ruckus which disturbed Mama and Child and they departed.
This is one of many lessons the Spirit has been teaching me lately. During Lent, I took an Abbey of the Arts on-line course which was a companion retreat to Christine Valters Painter’s book, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred. One of the prominent features for me of this retreat was the invitation to slow down and simply receive the images the Spirit offered through my photography.
In this season of Awe and Wonder, I do hope that you will join me in slowing down to simply Be Still and receive what the Spirit is offering to you.
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by Christine Sine
As some of you know I have been struggling with some health issues over the last couple of months that seemed to have sapped some of my creative spirit. Much to my delight, this week that seems to have changed and I once more find God’s creativity bubbling up within me in prayers and reflections.
Today’s prayer was inspired by our church litany yesterday
Almighty God, whom truly to know is eternal life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
by Christine Sine
When the Bible declares that we are made in the “image and likeness” of the Creator, it is affirming that creativity is at our core just as it lies at the core of the Creator of all things. (Creativity – Matthew Fox)
This week has overflowed with awe and wonder for me because in the appreciation of creativity, I have encountered my Creator in a very special and intimate way. Creativity is not just all around us. It is also in us. It is a gift from God, and a gift that wells up and flows out of each of us, drawing us into intimate relationship with God. It is indeed” at our core”, meant not just to be acknowledged, but to be savoured, admired and expressed, enriching us, and those around us in the process.
Creativity – and with it creation – is still very much in process. There is a river of creativity running through all things, all relationships, all beings, all corners and centers of this universe. We are here to join in, to get wet, to jump in to ride these rapids, wild and sacred as they be (Creativity: Matthew Fox 66)
This week has emphasized this for me in many ways. The creativity of God, seen in the beauty of spring blossoms, unfurling leaves, even the changing light and shade of shadows sweeps us into a breathtaking display of awe and wonder, stirring us into our own expressions of creativity. This week as enjoyed my awe and wonder walks, my gaze shifted towards other aspects of life that instilled awe in me, and now I am surrounded on all sides with a spectacular array of awe inspiring stimuli and creativity.
More than anything it has been peoples’ creativity, this gift from God that also reveals God to us, that has caught my attention.
Colorful kōlams, such as this one by Godavari Krishnamurthy, are drawn during festivals. R. KRISHNAMURTHY/COURTESY OF KAVERI PURANDHAR
My eyes were riveted by this article that talked about the incredible artistic creativity of millions of women in India who use rice flour and geometric design to create pictorial prayers.
BEFORE THE FIRST RAYS OF sunlight stream across the rice fields and mud roads in the Nilgiri Mountains, before they force their way through the high-rises in the urban jungle of Chennai and Madurai, the women of Tamil Nadu are up for the day. In the dark, they clean the threshold to their home, and, following a centuries-long tradition, painstakingly draw beautiful, ritualistic designs called kōlam, using rice flour. Read the entire article here
Closer to home, I have been admiring this beautiful piece of art painted by Lara Cooper in Australia who used a photo I posted on Facebook last year for her inspiration.
Tom with Goldie – artwork by Lara Cooper.
Then there is this hymn that Carol Dixon sent me from the UK.
Signs of God ‘s glory (Tune: Bard of Armargh/Streets of Laredo)
What signs of God’s glory are seen in the city,
hemmed in by the buildings of concrete and ore?
For we cannot tread the rich earth on hard pavements,
or hear the sheep bleating above the cars’ roar.
Yet still we can scour the sky for God’s patterns,
or notice a flower blooming on some waste ground;
and glimpse in a spider web shimmering dewdrops,
for in the unnoticed our Creator is found.
We see God behind the sad eyes of a vagrant,
hear God in the cry of a child who’s afraid;
and in work worn features of stressed city slickers,
our God reaches out to the world that he made.
So help us to notice, great God of Creation,
your handiwork traces in country and town,
in city or wilderness, may we discover
that your living presence is always around.
© Carol Dixon July 2009
What is Your Response?
Where have you expressed your creativity this week?
What creativity of others has caught your attention?
In what ways have you been drawn into a more intimate relationship with God through this creativity?
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I have a passion to see people learn how to REST. As a recovering workaholic, I want to help people see the gift that is REST and that this is a gift from God. REST is actually a commandment, smack in the middle of the BIG TEN! and one we forget because it comes with lots of baggage and more rules, depending upon where you grew up. But what if we really believed that REST is a gift and not a curse? What would that look like to you? To your family? To our culture? If we all actually had REST in our lives? If we all actually had margin and space, rather than over filled days and to do lists. We sadly don’t get points for resting! We get points for doing and having more on our calendars than someone else. I believe it’s God’s desire to give us the gift of REST because God loves us and knows we need to stop, pause and recover. God wants us to have margin in our lives so we don’t burn out and so we can actually have space to love other people. I’ve started leading retreats and workshops on practicing REST and Sabbath called #RESTisHoly. Here are some of the questions I ask that might help you get started in your practice of REST.
What does the word REST mean to you? When you hear it, do you think of taking a nap in a hammock, taking a walk, falling asleep on the couch, or getting to sleep in later than your normal alarm setting ? Or does the word REST make you nervous? Does it cause you to become anxious about what you might not be doing or about how much you haven’t done yet? There was an old book call Tim Hansel wrote a book in the early 80’s called When I Relax I feel Guilty. Maybe that’s how you feel too.
Why is it hard for you to rest? to pause, to take time to recover from the week, or from the busy season of your life? What things block you from REST? Take some time to think about this and talk to Jesus about where you are with REST.
What does REST look like in your life? What could REST look like in your life? What do you want REST to look like in your life? Your REST practice will look different from mine because everyone is different. You get to choose how you receive refreshment and how you will practice REST.
What practices feed your soul? What things bring you life and help you REST?
What if you actually gave yourself permission to REST rather than perform?
What is a symbol of REST or a visual reminder of REST for you? I actually bought a chair to sit in to remind me to stop and rest. And today, I started a painting of a porch with a rocking chair to remind me to take time to rest. The painting of the chair at the beginning of the article was done in 2015. 
Find a REST PARTNER, a person to help you actually practice REST. An accountability person to help and encourage you to REST. Especially if you don’t even know what rest really is or how to begin you’ll need a friend to help you. Plan to do something together, like take a walk or sit on the porch and drink tea together. All you need to do is give yourself permission to stop, to put down THE LIST, LET JESUS HAVE THE LIST! and BREATHE IN PEACE. We have to practice receiving the gift of REST!
People who like to tell you all the things they’ve done in their day or their week, won’t understand. And that’s ok. We are human beings, not human doings! We have to remember that REST is counter cultural AND #RESTisHoly
What if you choose REST as a thing to do this weekend? 
©lillylewin freerangeworship.com
Today (May 16th) is St Brendan’s feast day and as he is one of my favourite Celtic saints (maybe because I lived on a ship for so many years) I wanted to repost this for today.
Brendan’s voyage via http://www.puzzlewarehouse.com/St-Brendan-the-Navigator-pur357.html
The Prayer of St. Brendan
Listen too to this rendition of St Brendan’s Voyage
Here are the lyrics:
St. Brendan’s Voyage
Christy Moore
A boat sailed out of Brandon in the year of 501
’twas a damp and dirty mornin’ Brendan’s voyage it began.
Tired of thinnin’ turnips and cuttin’ curley kale
When he got back from the creamery he hoisted up the sail.
He ploughed a lonely furrow to the north, south, east and west
Of all the navigators, St. Brendan was the best.
When he ran out of candles he was forced to make a stop,
He tied up in Long Island and put America on the map.
Did you know that Honolulu was found by a Kerryman,
Who went on to find Australia then China and Japan.
When he was touchin’ 70, he began to miss the crack,
Turnin’ to his albatross he sez “I’m headin’ back”.
To make it fast he bent the mast and built up mighty steam.
Around Terra del Fuego and up the warm Gulf Stream,
He crossed the last horizon, Mt. Brandon came in sight
And when he cleared the customs into Dingle for the night.
When he got the Cordon Bleu he went to douse the drought,
He headed west to Kruger’s* to murder pints of stout
Around by Ballyferriter and up the Conor Pass
He freewheeled into Brandon, the saint was home at last.
The entire population came (281) the place was chock-a-block
Love nor money wouldn’t get your nose inside the shop.
The fishermen hauled up their nets, the farmers left their hay,
Kerry people know that saints don’t turn up every day.
Everythin’ was goin’ great ’til Brendan did announce
His reason for returnin’ was to try and set up house.
The girls were flabbergasted at St. Bredan’s neck
To seek a wife so late in life and him a total wreck.
Worn down by rejection that pierced his humble pride,
“Begod”, sez Brendan “If I run I’ll surely catch the tide”
Turnin’ on his sandals he made straight for the docks
And haulin’ up his anchor he cast off from the rocks.
As he sailed past Inishvickallaun there stood the albatross
“I knew you’d never stick it out, ’tis great to see you boss”
“I’m bailin’ out” sez Brendan, “I badly need a break
A fortnight is about as much as any aul saint could take.”
CHORUS
“Is it right or left for Gibraltar”
“What tack do I take for Mizen Head?”
“I’d love to settle down near Ventry Harbour”,
St. Brendan to his albatross he said.
And a beautiful animated version of Brendan’s voyage as related by children
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