Christ says yes

Last fall I went on a retreat with a group of friends from several different Christian denominations. We broke bread, shared stories, sang hymns (sometimes each using our own words to a familiar tune), prayed together, and drew closer.

At this retreat I kept thinking how the Christ says yes. Though we may have thought our upbringing was defined by a framework of nos – things we’re not supposed to do or be – in fact the way Christ defines us is by saying yes to what we are – yes to what we always have been. When we are recognized as what we are, what we have always hoped about ourselves leaps out as truth to us. We feel affirmed, validated, loved. This is how the Christ heals – by affirming that which we always have been but didn’t dare to believe could be true: our perfection in the purpose of God. So in my earnest desire to follow Christ, I took on this assignment: No more nos. Be one who says yes to people. Yes to who they are, yes to this unique expression of God, yes to their soul’s desire to be seen and loved.

Our surroundings were a wedding of sea and farmland, with a garden for the songbirds, a steep bluff for the raptors, and a great shallow bay for all the sea birds – herons, loons, gulls. This place was as much a teacher as we all were to each other. Here is something I wrote about it:

The change in experience that results from the touch of Christ is as instant as the change in the water at the touch of light. The majestic liquid transparency, the sudden subtlety of color that appears in the place of inscrutable gray, can touch the whole surface of the water at once. The unique beauty of each moment, in the myriad faces of the water, always present and always revealed in the now, is seen whenever we look. So it is that the Christ is always present, and transforms our experience – not just the surface of it, but the whole depth of it – all that ever was, all that can unfold. Thanks to the Creator for all light – “Light baptizes life.”

Last weekend I was there again, with a different mix of people but with the same intention. Again the Christ spoke to me, and the land spoke to me in the same words; the water voiced the truth about Love, and in people’s prayers for me came the message: Just let yourself be loved. I’m not sure how to do that, yet, as a daily practice. But I did feel loved by the warm sand and the gentle wind. I did feel the comfort of being exactly what the Creator intends me to be – the grace in my steps and the joy that stretched to my fingertips. I need to learn what it means in the dance of interaction with people – a lesson I look forward to.