"Yes"
Jane Leyden Cavanaugh
Sunday, December 22nd, 2002

A few weeks ago, someone told me that I had finally become a credible woman. I had just turned 40. Some people dread their birthdays. I love them.

One of my favorites was my 38th birthday, two years ago, when my then boyfriend, Joe Cavanaugh, took me skating... on Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. (That's my kind of guy.) We skated there for an hour when, 8:00, the session ended. We had to get off the ice.

Now, I am by nature a rule follower. Joe is a rule breaker. At 8:00, everybody headed off the ice. But not us. Oh no, Joe would not let us get off the ice. He had my hand and he kept tugging me around the rink for more loops. We were blatantly breaking the rules, which I hated to do.

Come on, Jane, lets skate a little while longer. No, they asked us to get off. Come on, Jane, live on the wild side! No, it's time to go. Just one more time? NO! Joe, don't make me do this!

We played tug of war, and even though I am a much better skater than Joe, he pulled me onto the center of the rink. We were the only two people left on the ice. A thousand New Yorkers were looking at us from the balconies above. I was mortified.

Then he got down on one knee. The crowd went "OOOOOh." And he took a diamond ring from his coat pocket and said: "Jane, I love you, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?"

I said "yes," one of the most significant "yeses" of my life. And I put the ring on and I showed it to the crowd. And we kissed and the whole crowd broke out in applause and shouts: Way to go, you two!!‚ Congratulations! Yeah! That little word- "yes" changed my life in a profound way.

My background is acting. For 12 years, I was a professional actress. I studied and performed mostly improvisation in Mpls., Chicago and Los Angeles. Improvisation, for those of you who don't know, is performing spontaneously with no script- taking suggestions from the audience and creating a scene.

When I was in Chicago, at the Second City Comedy School, we learned the CARDINAL RULE for improv. The rule of "yes and." "Yes and:" the basic, fundamental rule for all actors doing improv.

It's simply this. You and your scene partner are on stage. Whatever comes out of your scene partnerŐs mouth, you accept as true, the "yes" part, and you build upon it, that's the "and" part you add more information, you "forward the action" they call it.

If your scene partner walks on stage and says to you: "'Gol' dang it, Buddy, you screwed up the FLUX CAPACITATOR."

You go with it: You are Buddy, a bumbling mechanic.

"OOh, I'm sorry, Mr. Grumby, about that FLUX CAPACITATOR and I'll solder the VACCUUM-OPERATED THROTTLE MODULATOR for ya before my morning break."

Accept the information you've been given. It is a gift. The perfect gift. Don't edit it. Don't change it. Go with it. And then add something and give them back a gift.

One of my favorite teachers at Second City, always told us: "Take the ride you've been given."

He was talking about accepting the lines that your scene partner gives you, but he was also talking about life.

Take the ride in life you've been given.

Our lives, our rides, are unique: they are an emerging story fashioned for us by a God who loves us. One of our greatest challenges is to say "yes and" to what we are given in life.

King David from the second reading was definitely a "yes and" person. He took the ride he was given.

Then there's Mary in Luke's gospel- She took her ride too and "yes anded" pretty well.

There she is, an obscure, Jewish, peasant-class teenager, in her house in Nazareth, Her scene partner is the angel Gabriel who comes in and tells her that she is favored by God and that she is going to conceive a child who will be called the Son of the Most High.

And she basically says: "Yes, I'll be the mother of the Son of the Most High... AND, God, anything you want to do with me, I'll do it."

"Here am I, the servant of the Lord let it be with me according to your word."

You might be saying: Well, it's easy to say "yes and" to opportunities that will raise your status, give you special privileges like David and Mary...

Or to say "yes" to circumstances in life you want. For me, saying "yes" to Joe's proposal was easy- I wanted to marry Joe. He was from Edina... and I was from St. Paul.

But what about saying "yes and" to that other side of life: lost opportunities, failures, bad health, tragedy? Do we accept and say "yes and" to the circumstances we dont want?

The author of the first reading, Parker Palmer, talks about this. In his own way, I believe he, too, is pushing us to be "yes and" people especially when the doors in our life close. He tells us:

"Stop pounding on the door that closes- turn around- which puts the door behind us- and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls."
I think Mr. Palmer is telling us that we're wasting our time and energy and potential opportunities when we don't accept and move on from closed doors.

I've had many closed doors in my life. I've tried to be a "yes and" person through those times.

A door closed when I was 21. My dad died. Without a biological dad, I turned and allowed other people in my life to partly fill that void: one of my father's best friends, my uncle, now my father-in-law fills a lot of that role.

In my acting career, many doors literally closed... in my face. No! you're too tall, too short, sorry, you're too old, too young, too midwestern, ahhh a little too normal.

Accepting that I wasn't going to make it as an actress, my life long dream, and turning from those closed doors, as hard as that was, led me to find my vocation somewhere else.

Accepting those closed doors brought me to this moment: right here doing what I love to do- helping people grow in their faith.

And many many relationships didn't work out- more closed doors I never thought I'd be 38 and still not married. After lots and lots and lots of pounding, I turned around... and found Joe, the love of my life, a much better partner for me than my previous 58 boyfriends.

It's very difficult for God to work with us when we are in denial, yelling, scratching and screaming at our closed doors:

As people of faith, perhaps our challenge is to acknowledge those endings- say "yes and" to that door that is closed. "Yes, this door is very very closed" AND turn around to see what's in store for us when we let go.

This is the space where God can work with us. This is the space of trust and creativity and new life.

I wrote this reflection especially for those in this room who are not going to experience the kind of Christmas you had hoped. It's hard to celebrate holidays when your life is not what you thought it would be.

You don't like your ride right now.

Maybe a door has recently closed for you and you're struggling to see the sense in it.

In closing, I ask everybody to close your eyes right now and think of a closed door that you are pounding on: