Yes!

but to everything?

I found out recently that I had been betrayed. Admittedly, it was thirty years ago - but it was still a punch in the guts. One of the most influential figures in my life - the youth leader at the church I went to as a teenager - had been behaving badly with my then girlfriend.

Cologne Cathedral, 2024

Of course, I’m not the real victim here - just collateral damage. But still. This man had perpetrated years of fraud against me - posing as teacher, friend, and mentor. He had shaped my life in important ways. Finding this out thirty years on had the effect of undermining something that lurked in the dark recesses of my subconscious as foundational to who I am today.

When people talk about saying ‘yes’ to life, they usually don’t mean for us to say ‘yes’ to betrayal, pain, and abuse. It seems like such a wholesome thing to do - to affirm life. But in the face of what life actually includes, affirming it seems radical.

Can we really say ‘yes’ to all of it - love and hatred, joy and suffering…