Lessons:
Have you ever had the chance to work with an improv group? They have this technique for working together, a way to communicate and support each other live onstage in order to move the action forward. It’s called YES AND. Let me give you an example. Two people walk onstage and one of them says “well here we are at the grocery store!” and looks expectantly at the other person. The other person can do one of two things – first, they can stop everything in its tracks. What would that look like? They can say, “no we’re not! We’re at the zoo!” and then the first person either has to double down on being at the grocery store (and then the improv becomes a power struggle for determining the reality of the scene) or change everything and suddenly be at the zoo when they and the whole audience thought they were at the grocery store. This is not the preferred way to engage in improv. The preferred way is YES AND. “Here we are at the grocery store!” says person 1, and then person 2 says “Yes, and we better get to aisle three right now!” To get through a good improv, you have to let go of control and look and listen to what’s going on around you.
Every day we have the opportunity to say YES AND within the world around us.
Here is a difficult truth that I am asked to recall every once in a while: remember you are dust, and to dust you will return. In a moment, a priest will take ashes and make the sign of the cross on my forehead and I will need to respond to this in some way. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return” No, I do not accept that I’m going to die, just as Christ died? Or YES AND? Reality calls me to respond to what I have been given with YES AND. SO here’s my yes and:
I’m not sure exactly where this happened, or how this happened, but at some point in my faith journey, a priest made the sign of the cross on my forehead and said to me “remember your baptism and that God has always loved you”
Remember your baptism and that God has always loved you. We must suffer and we must die. YES AND we don’t have to do those things alone. God has always loved you. Look around you. We face this together. This is our YES AND.
Let’s switch focus for a moment and talk about healing.
I see the idea of healing conflated with the act of getting rid of a lot.
The medical model, which is dominant in western healthcare, treats human conditions through a process of assessing, diagnosing and treating, so maybe that’s why we think healing means locating, targeting, and making go away.
Sure we assume our lives will be better for it, but to an extent we still treat the process of healing as something that has to involve rejection and destruction. There is a problem, we want it gone. Sin comes to mind. Even as we say words like acceptance and surrender and compassion, the energy with which we speak them exposes an undercurrent of will, dominance and control.
At the other end of the spectrum there is an option to think about healing as generative, constructive and life-giving.
So rather than seeking to impose our will over the things we struggle within ourselves and others, we aim for a kind of intentional participation with those things. YES AND is not just for improv. YES AND is what we are doing when we say yes to God, when we say yes to our neighbor, when we are paying attention to the world around us.
We can get what we need to live, heal, die and transform but only under one condition: That we learn to listen and receive. The great work that is before us is about moving toward peace, alliance, harmony and collaboration with life, with God, and with one another. We don’t get to set the scene. In many ways we are not in control. We have to find a way to relate with what reality gives us.
what is. Rather than seeking to bend the world to our will we should approach life from a stance of curiosity. Rather than exclaiming, “I’m sorry I was told we were going to the zoo, and I must insist, here in front of a live audience, that you are wrong, and that we will not go to the grocery store” Instead we ask, “what’s being offered, here?” YES AND is constructive, not destructive.
Let us take the proper time to understand what is happening. Maybe 40 days where we, as our verse said earlier, we rend our hearts and not our clothing.
Let us grapple in this holy Lent with our ability to open our hearts and minds and to be receptive to what this soul searching provides. The good. The bad. The deeply delightful, the hideously grotesque. All of it in ourselves, in others, in the world.
You’re probably thinking, be receptive to the bad, hideous and grotesque? No thank you. I mean, what kind of world would it be if we all received the fruits of hatred, violence and oppression with arms outstretched? If we smiled lovingly at our hearts when we were greedy or petty or controlling, when we moved in fear and not love, when we were harsh or critical or downright mean. Would we not just be reinforcing destructive, antisocial and all around bad behavior?
Those concerns are legit if receptivity is synonymous with passivity and resignation, but it isn’t. Not here. Here, receptivity is the state from which acceptance is possible.
Life is dialogue, not monologue. We step onto the stage, the scene is set, and we say YES AND…
That means that part of it is speaking, but part is also listening. If you are not listening, you are not able to receive. If you’re not able to receive, you’re not able to accept. If you cannot accept, and you cannot receive, then you cannot do your part right. Your capability to speak and act appropriately is compromised.
Life is not that different. How many times do we refuse to listen to what’s really going on around us, take zero cues, and then grow indignant when we’re not cast in the roles we want?
Reality has to be the context in which you do what you do. If it isn’t, it’s because you haven’t accepted what you’ve been given.
Remember that accepting doesn’t mean liking or agreeing with. It means giving yourself permission to move forward properly, which is a lot more likely to happen when you have accurate information.
You get to take part; you do not get to take whole.
So with that, Lent begins. YES AND what does that mean for you? What is your part in these holy mysteries? You have some time to think about your answer. You have 40 holy days to pray and to fast and to remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. All things come to an end. Don’t they? Yes. And, all things come to a beginning.
Let’s get ready for it.