Sunday
Mary is the model of the faith to which God calls all of us: a total and unreserved yes to God’s request to be present in and to the world through us.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
Advent is nothing if not the story of beginnings, revealing a God who dares to expand, who chooses enlargement over happiness, no matter the chaos.
—Stephanie Duncan Smith
Tuesday
There is a part of us, the Holy Spirit within, that has always said yes to God.
—Richard Rohr
Wednesday
I’m reminded of my small part in this larger and longer story, of saying “yes” like Mary whenever I can, to bringing new and renewing life into our world, here and now.
—Katie Gordon
Thursday
Through Mary’s example, God invites us to take the risk of love—even though it undoubtedly opens us up to the possibility of getting hurt, being scared, and feeling disappointed.
–Rachel Held Evans
Friday
To give love, we also need to be able to receive it. This invitation to receptivity encourages us to listen to the stirrings of love, release into communion with God, and become more present to Divine love.
—Colette Lafia
Week Forty-Nine Practice
Saying Yes to Our Lives
Mirabai Starr recounts how she came to say yes to God in her life as it is instead of how she imagined it should be:
All my life, I have been enamored of the God-intoxicated ones. Those rarified souls who slip into ecstatic states and spontaneously utter poetry. The ones who exude deep stillness, embody equanimity, listen more than they speak. The initiated and the ordained, the monastics….
I wanted to be one of them. Until I didn’t.
I want you not to want that as well…. I want you to want to be exactly who you are: a true human person doing their best to show up for this fleeting life with a measure of grace, with kindness and a sense of humor, with curiosity and a willingness to not have all the answers, with reverence for life.
You do not need to chant all night in a temple in the Himalayas. You don’t have to be the newest incarnation of Mary Magdalene. It is not necessary to read or write spiritual books. You are not required to know the difference between Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism or memorize the Beatitudes. All you have to do to walk the path of the ordinary mystic is to cultivate a gaze of wonder and step onto the road. Keep walking. Rest up, and walk again. Fall down, get up, walk on. Pay attention to the landscape. To the ways it changes and the ways it stays the same. Be alert to surprises and turn with the turning of the seasons. Honor your body, train your mind, and keep your heart open against all odds. Say yes to what is, even when it is uncomfortable or embarrassing or heartbreaking. Hurl your handful of yes into the treetops and then lift your face as the rain of yes drops its grace all over you, all around you, and settles deep inside you.
Reference:
Mirabai Starr, Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground (HarperOne, 2024), 214–215.
Image credit and inspiration: Pranish Shrestha, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Not knowing what comes next yet still saying yes is courage rooted in a framework beyond the practical—like Mary holding the small light of her yes in the midst of a dark night.
