Lent, Day 33: for my Yes

“When I speak of God, I mean this kind of love, this great yes to belonging. I experience this love at one and the same time as God’s Yes to all that exists. In saying yes, I realize God’s very life and love within me.” –David Steindl-Rast

I had a little break between guitar and voice lessons, so I parked in a tiny parking lot and went straight to the swing next to the outdoor fireplace.

It wasn’t what I expected to do that afternoon, but I was thankful for it.

The yes of God is a mysterious and odd thing, and we can hardly attempt to take hold of it when we find it.

Often we feel we’re undeserving of that love, or we think we’re better off without it.

Sometimes we are angry because we think we’ve earned it and it’s not coming fast enough, or we are actually afraid to find it, afraid that it will change everything.

The thing is, God’s love is far beyond a yes or no from our lips.

The mystery of Yes is that God is our constant who holds all things constantly together.

The great web of the world is taken care of, and we are simply asked to trust and believe.

And so we come closer and closer to Easter, shifting from this particular space in the journey to another one.

But just as the Mystery of Jesus was alive from the beginning until resurrection and still today, so is the constant and unending yes of God.

I sat on that little swing and felt the fullness of God around me, a Georgia afternoon welcoming in the newness of spring, and I said yes, please, make Your space here.

Lent is the recognition that Jesus said yes to the Mystery inside of him, the Mystery he was born of.

He was saying yes to us,  yes to pain, yes to despair, yes to insult and mockery and beating.

He was saying yes to a resurrection, yes to a Kingdom come and coming, yes to an eternal relationship with every piece of creation belonging to him.

And that’s who we belong to.

Yes.