Saying Yes

What does it take to not just say 'yes' to our lives and to one another, but to bring our beauty, dignity, creativity and imagination in response? It's a different path to take from 'turning away', and equally different from 'passive acceptance'. Being a human affords us this possibility - that when we encounter fear, shame, wonder, injustice, confusion, or hope, we have the chance to muster a response that brings something new into the world. This episode of Turning Towards Life is a conversation about what it is to hold what we would rather not hold, and to answer it with beauty, hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify.

Our source this week is chosen for us by Lizzie, and is written by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

Saying Yes

And could I, like this picture frame
hold any image I was given?
I think of the news last night—how I would rather not hold
what I saw there.
I think of what I learned just yesterday
about myself and notice how
I would rather push the image away.
But could I be like this picture frame
that will hold anything and in so doing
honor its importance? Honor
everything, no matter how mundane,
no matter how frightening,
as something worth knowing,
something essential to what it means to be alive,
a soup can, perhaps, a petunia, or a scream.
How easily the frame says yes to the world,
takes it in, anything, with no judgement,
and offers it whatever beauty it has.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Photo by pine watt on Unsplash