{"id":6709,"date":"2021-10-28T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/?p=6709"},"modified":"2021-10-25T11:03:55","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T16:03:55","slug":"saying-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pts.edu\/blog\/saying-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spirituality of Saying Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently received one of those emails you just don\u2019t see coming: a friend from 10-15 years ago asked me if I\u2019d consider driving to New Jersey to officiate her cousin\u2019s wedding. Less than two weeks later.<\/p>\n

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What do you say when an out-of-the-blue opportunity comes along? I\u2019ll admit, my first instinct is almost always No. As comedian John Mulaney has pointed out<\/a>, it\u2019s 100% easier not to do things than to do them.<\/p>\n

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Despite Mulaney\u2019s insightful joke, I ended up saying yes. My wife and I had a wonderful weekend in New Jersey, where I officiated the wedding for a delightful couple at a beautiful venue. This post isn\u2019t really about that decision, but it did get me thinking: maybe others\u00a0also need to learn to say yes more often.<\/p>\n

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Why? Well, what drew many of us to church\u00a0in the first place was its promise of truth, certainty, order, and a reliable structure to the cosmos. In other words, we have a particular interest in things happening according to plan\u2014God\u2019s or otherwise. There\u2019s nothing wrong with this per se, but in my experience, it can sometimes keep us closed off from some spontaneous adventures.<\/p>\n

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(Caveat #1: I know that many people have an opposite problem. They have been used and abused in their churches, and they never learned to set and keep healthy boundaries. For folks in this boat, their journey may currently be focused on learning to say no! For the record, please set and keep healthy boundaries! But these boundaries don\u2019t need to preclude new opportunities that come along.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Some movies have even been made specifically about the act of saying yes to things. The 2008 film Yes Man<\/em>\u00a0is the story of a guy who decided to say yes to literally everything (not recommended). In this year\u2019s\u00a0Yes Day<\/em>, two parents decide to have one day when they will say yes to every one of their kids\u2019 outlandish requests. Both these tales are ultimately about people who are closed off to new things learning to become more open.<\/p>\n

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And this openness is absolutely vital to the journey of evolving faith (or so I\u2019ve observed for myself and the folks at my faith community, Harbor Online Community<\/a>). When most of us share our stories, we describe a critical juncture when we first formed a close relationship with someone of a different race, sexuality, political party, culture, or religion. These new connections and experiences have required us, at some point, to say Yes.<\/p>\n

To put it simply, when we overcome our resistance and say Yes, we open up possibilities to the new:<\/div>\n