“I am going away, and I am coming to you,” Jesus tells his disciples in his last supper with them. He is preparing them and us for the ebb and flow of life with God. Sometimes we may experience the flow of God’s presence in a night vision as Paul did in our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, as a call to action. Sometimes we may experience it as John did on Patmos as a prophetic illumination, as an encouragement in times of trial. Sometimes we may experience God’s coming to us in the beauty of a glorious sunset, or in the harmony of a magnificent symphony, or in the peace that comes from watching a sleeping baby, or in the joy of recognition of answered prayer, or in the synchronicity of the timeliness of unrelated events. Sometimes it may be as gentle as the waves calmly lapping against the shore of St. George Island; while at other times it can be as powerful as the thundering surf in Hawaii. God meets us where we are, as we are, so our experience of God’s coming to each of us will not only be different from others’, but also different depending on where we are in our spiritual journey, on what we need at the time to draw us closer to God. We experience the going away just as differently. The disciples first realized Jesus’ going away in his death on the cross, then in his going away after each of his resurrection appearances, and finally in his ascension into heaven, which we will celebrate this coming Thursday, and which we commemorate in Trinity’s central stained glass window above our altar. While we may trust that God (Emmanuel) is with us always, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. Sometimes God’s ebbing feels like what John of the Cross calls “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Sometimes we may feel totally abandoned by God, as Christ exclaimed from the cross, as described by the 14th century mystic, Catherine of Siena, as noted in the journals of Mother Teresa. Others describe those experiences as dry times, as desert or wilderness experiences, something to be expected on the way to the Promised Land. Consolations and desolations, God’s comings and goings are two sides of the same coin, the gold of God’s love. Grace provides just the right ebb and flow of God’s presence to enable us to grow into the fullness of God’s love.