five minute friday: yes

Every week Kate Montaung hosts Five Minute Friday: write unedited for five minutes. Our 5-minute sprint for this first Friday of September 2015 is yes.


whenever I hear and consider "yes" I always re-collect Molly Bloom's Soliloquy from James Joyce's Ulysses "and yes I said yes I will yes"

Scripture commands us to let our yes be a simple plain unadorned unqualified single word: yes

(and, of course, whenever we say no, make that no plain and clear and clarion.)

Lately I've been saying a lot of yeses to the city I relocated to at the end of June. To the first housing I had here that was very temporary because in order find somewhere, I decided to go for higher rent than I could afford long-term, and the fourth person on their lease couldn't move in until September. Heaven-made match? Minimally a serendipitous situation. Yes!

Just last night, my first full day where I'm now living and probably will stay through the winter, a big exultant yes to living again in a house full of people who let me be, who are yes to my presence in their lives, just as I affirm YES to their being in my life for this interim time. Finally ... rescued much? YES! Rescued barely in time? YES! And let me tell ya, despite all the problems with this very old, poorly maintained house, the shower is the best I've ever experienced! Yes. It is.

Yes, whether plain and simple or with a boatload of qualifiers, is a useful universal word found in every language on earth. Better and clear than for sure, than positively, than absolutely, than definitely. I love Anglo Saxon single syllable words! Yes and no both are major winners in that category. Sometimes I try to write an expressive paragraph or two or three without a single adjective or adverb. Easy or not? Yes, sometimes. Not really at other times. = no.

This early September Thursday even is a yes for the hope a new geographical location, new people, new churches and revitalized dreams bring. And yes, I said yes, I will trust God—yes!