Living Yes
'You're in charge! You can do anything you want! You're ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.' [Matt 6:9-13 - The Message] “I did answer Yes, ” wrote Dag Hammarskjold in his private journal, “Markings” on New Year's day 1953. “ For all that has been – Thanks! To all that shall be – Yes! ” (a) Who was he saying yes to? Yes to God and yes to whatever that commitment meant as he lived life and all the challenges that came his way. That life included a season of intense personal darkness from which emerged his first statement to say yes, and later into a very public role as the United Nations Secretary-General 1955-1961. It was a role that would require great courage as he negotiated peace in China, the Suez Crisis and in the Congo where he died in a plane crash. His journal revealed that each year, he said yes. He lived “yes”. A yes, that said, “Not I, but God in me.” When I first read this account of Dag Hammarskjold, I didn’t appreciate the depth o...