In the reading from Acts, the disciples stand there, looking up. Jesus has just ascended — lifted from their sight — and they’re left between what was and what will be. Between promise and fulfillment. Between presence and Spirit.
I’ve been living in that in-between space for many months now.

Last July, the Jesuit parish I had pastored in Kansas City — St. Francis Xavier — was returned to the local diocese. Our provincial had a difficult discernment and decision to make, as we Jesuits faced diminishing numbers and the need to weigh competing goods. I understood the challenges we face, but it was still a loss. A goodbye. My mother passed away in September after months in hospice care. My father died in December. I was with them both when they died — sacred moments I carry with me. Then, just after Christmas, I moved to Omaha in the heart of winter to begin a new role at Creighton.

Everything was new. Everything was unfamiliar.

I wasn’t staring up at the sky like the disciples — I just didn’t know where to look.

It strikes me that Scripture doesn’t quite agree on what the disciples did next. In Acts, they return to Jerusalem rejoicing, unified in prayer. But in the Gospels, they’re still bewildered — hiding behind locked doors, unsure what resurrection even means, even after Jesus breathes the Spirit upon them. That tension feels familiar. Sometimes we’re bold, sometimes we’re broken. Sometimes we’re ready to proclaim, and sometimes we’re just trying to hold it together.

The good news is: grace comes either way.

As winter gave way to spring, I began to feel something shift. The trees didn’t rush to bud, but they did. Life began to bloom again. I’m finding my footing. Relationships are beginning to grow. I’m starting to feel at home in myself once more.

And through it all — the grief, the confusion, the starting over — Jesus has not left. I’ve missed him so much. At times I have felt so alone. But the truth is, I wasn’t. Friends — Jesuit and lay — have walked with me, prayed with me, helped me carry what I could not carry alone. And I believe — I know — Jesus walked with me too, even when I didn’t know where he was. He’s been there in silence and in friendship, in memory and in grace. His promise has held, even when I couldn’t yet see its fulfillment.

The Ascension isn’t about Jesus abandoning us. It’s about trusting that God is still at work in the in-between. That even in the ache of absence, something holy is unfolding.

And the Spirit is on the way.