On Losing
an Eye and Readjusting: Ascension and Letting Go On Losing an
Eye and Readjusting: Ascension and Letting Go On Losing an Eye and
Readjusting: Ascension and Letting Go

On Losing an Eye and Readjusting: Ascension and Letting Go

10 years ago, I arrived in Jersey with two blue eyes.  A year later, on what turned out to be a very bad day in September 2017, Liverpool got taken apart by the Blues of Manchester, 5-0 at the Etihad, and that evening my right eye started to close (an infection, not a punch from a City fan in a pub)!  The net result was City’s fifth title (subsequently added to), one functioning eye and a blind and occasionally half-closed right eye.  Many repeated attempts to restore vision have proven complicated and unsuccessful, though I have been assured just as many times that there is vision potential on the retina. Chuck in a bit of cancer, and long gone are the days when physical health was an uncomplicated matter.  Which has meant that I need to accept and work with that situation, or else live life forever sad, angry and exhausted at the seeming unfairness of life. Learning to see the graces in the life I actually used to have, being thankful for them and integrating them into the life I now have, and then moving on.  After a little bit of cursing, the actual reality is that I now have one eye, a lot more patience, a better sense of priorities and gratitude, and I take my health and well-being much more seriously. Many people have a life that is much worse than mine (yeah, I know, it doesn’t change either my situation or theirs, but a little perspective always helps), and so (on good days at least) I have a word with myself: “Get over yourself, stop moaning and move on, lad!  Who said life is meant to be ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ and what set of criteria is being used there to adjudicate the notion of fairness?”

Yesterday was the celebration of the Ascension - the moment when Jesus physically left this world of the five senses.  In doing so, he left his disciples behind - bereft, terrified and huddled together in a locked upper room in Jerusalem.  In 10 days the Church will celebrate Pentecost - the moment when the Holy Spirit is poured out on those same despondent, petrified and isolated individuals, empowering them to burst out of that room, transforming them into a community that proclaims to the known world the gospel (= a Greek word for ‘happy announcement’ or ‘good news’) about Jesus’ resurrection from crucifixion, a proclamation that somehow love is what life is about.  Pentecost actually depends on the Ascension.  Why? Well, sometimes in life, to receive a positive moment in the present of our life, we simply have to stop living in a past that may have once been positive but is now gone. Never deny the past, of course.  Be thankful for the past, acknowledge what was good about it, receive and integrate into our present whatever graces the past gave us - but now move on because the past is gone and is never coming back. Let it go, because we now live in a new situation (e.g. one eye, not two; post-cancer, not pre-cancer).

It is interesting that when we read the accounts of Jesus’ appearances to his disciples after the Resurrection, we do not find the disciples totally ecstatic all of the time!  It is not a case of, “We’ve got Jesus back, let’s party!” Maybe the disciples were nervous?  I mean, let’s be honest, just days before they had unanimously decided to abandon Jesus!  Their leader, Peter, had denied even knowing Jesus!  Or perhaps they had one eye on the door of the Upper Room – were the authorities about to walk through it and stick them, too, up on a cross?  Whatever the reasons, we are told that in these post-Resurrection days, they aren’t delighted. They don’t always recognise Jesus – they take him for a gardener, a beachcomber, a wayfarer on the road running from Jerusalem to Emmaus.  We learn in Matthew’s account that not all of the disciples bowed down and worshipped Jesus after the Resurrection (even if some did).  Some doubted.  Whatever way you try to spin it, the ‘40 days’ between the Resurrection and the Ascension are clearly not 6 weeks of endless festivity and the resolution of all doubt!  Quite the contrary - it is a mixture of some joy, some questioning, a pile of confusion and hesitation, and probably a mix of other emotions and thoughts (whether voiced or left unspoken).

The ‘40 Days’ is a period of necessary training: Jesus forms his leadership team as he moves them out of their comfort zone.  By the time the Ascension arrives, 40 days later, they are further along the road (but not yet there) of letting go of something (Jesus’ visible presence) so that they can move on with their lives and let God’s plan unfold a bit more. Jesus, in his new phase of existence, is leaving them by ascending to Heaven so that God can come into the world in a new way, through the Holy Spirit.  By letting Jesus’ visible presence go, Pentecost will take place, and the Holy Spirit will help Jesus’ disciples start the work of the Church.  Sometimes we just have to let go of what used to be positive and life-giving for us - for no other reason than the fact it’s time for that, its time has passed, and it is now time for us to move on to something else in life that will enrich us. Pentecost can only follow Ascension.

It is rarely easy to let go of the past.  The disciples had 40 days and were still in a bit of a mess when the Lord left!  Learning to let go and move on can take a lot longer than 40 days, depending on whatever it is we are moving on from!  People remain in very toxic relationships for all sorts of complex personal reasons.  Nostalgia, hopeless romanticism, noble but misguided spiritualities about the value of heroic suffering - these can all be root causes of why people get stuck in relationships that may have been good once but are no longer life-giving and may even be downright harmful!  Students often recognise only with the hindsight of Secondary School that they had to leave Primary School to be happy, even if they still occasionally miss those simpler days - the ‘40 days’ of readjustment can last well into their first term and beyond!  Year 13 students may shed tears at prize giving - but deep down they know they have to let Beaulieu go if they are to embrace a university or some other course, take a gap year, begin a training program or internship or new job.  The “no longer young” among us must, in the end, learn to grow old gracefully if we want to live less miserably!  Blind eyes, aching backs, painful knees and plantar fasciitis are no joke!  And yet…and yet, our more mature years can be full of joy, new consolations and a certain peace, if one stops clinging to the past and embraces the present. 

The lesson about Ascension and letting go needs to be learned if we are to be happy.  The penny must drop that life (God, if that’s your preferred terminology) always gives new gifts, but some gifts of the past have to be dropped from our hands in order to receive others in our hands.  Honour the past, yes; learn from it; accept its wisdom and graces (whether these came from beauty or ugliness, pleasure or suffering); but never, ever cling to it.  Is there anything in our past preventing us from living more fully in our present?  Happy Ascension, Beaulieu!