Yes to Life: Rediscovering the Fire of Love

Birdsong. Sunlight. Rushing water. Wind, and the shadows cast by leaves. These things all have a way of pulling us out of ourselves on difficult and grief-filled days. In their own subtle ways, each reminds us that life keeps going even if our individual day, life, and emotions are all out of sorts. While my heart aches as I read about a murderous war funded by unfathomable resources that could have instead been used to care for humanity, I look up and out my office window to see a forest whose new leaves are catching sunlight as each tree prepares for the summer ahead. Life continues despite loss, despite destruction, despite unspeakable joy. Life does what it does. So how do we say yes to it? 

In a 2013 lecture on love, Br. David Steindl-Rast argued that love is a lived yes to life against the possible no. He said “All that we choose is given to us by life, and all that we refuse is also given to us by life. You can choose to go against the grain all your life or you can choose to go with the grain.” There are many experiences, interpretations, and forms of love. But, the love of which Br. David speaks of is like the “I do” of a wedding vow: Yes, despite it all. Yes, I am committed to whatever this becomes. Yes, we’ll do this together. 

Much like saying yes to a partner, saying yes to life is a monumental task in which we are asked to dwell among the unexpected. We never truly know what is coming our way and, yet, we can say yes to it. This yes becomes easier when it is grounded in the knowledge that life is a gift and to be here is a statistical miracle. But, this doesn’t make our yes to life any easier. If we think of saying yes like a river, then we can expect that where we are headed will be a surprise because we cannot control the current. So, we must trust and acknowledge that the river is going to flow in surprising and unexpected ways. You can suffer by trying to paddle against the current. Or you can lean in, learn to swim, and remain open as you head downstream into the unknown. 

“All that we choose is given to us. All that we refuse is also given to us.” This profound realization reminds us that life is in control. So rather than refuse what we cannot change, we can respond to it with care and attention. In fact, we can even embrace it by acknowledging that what we must face is our work to do. We can say yes, even though we may not want or did not seek what is being given to us. And with this mindset we can recognize that there is an opportunity — an invitation —  to become who we need to be in this situation. 

Love is considered a virtue, a way of being that is second nature or an expression of a person’s being. So, Br. David’s description of love as a “lived yes” relies on us embodying a stance that prepares us for courageous work whenever a need presents itself. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Harriet Tubman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ella Baker, Francis of Assisi, and countless others all said yes and responded to what life was inviting them to do. This is not an invitation reserved for special heroes, but one given to all of us. 

You can choose to go with or against the grain. That choice — the suffering caused by refusing or accepting the opportunity to do the work that belongs to you — is yours. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin inspires us to say yes: “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man [sic] will have discovered fire.” Our collective yes opens us to possibilities and discoveries that our collective no cannot imagine. May each of us have the courage to trust and say yes! 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

Joe Primo, Grateful Living

Joe Primo is the CEO of Grateful Living. He is a passionate speaker and community-builder whose accomplishments made him a leading voice on resilience and adversity. Gratefulness for life, he believes, is foundational to discovering meaning and the only response that is big enough and appropriate for the plot twists, delights, surprises, and devastation we encounter along the way. A student of our founder since his studies at Yale Divinity School, Joe is committed to advancing our global movement and making the transformational practice of grateful living both accessible to all and integral to communities and places of belonging. His TED talk, “Grief is Good,” reframed the grief paradigm as a responsive resource. He is the author of “What Do We Tell the Children? Talking to Kids About Death and Dying” and numerous articles.

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