{"id":1142,"date":"2009-02-22T22:58:03","date_gmt":"2009-02-22T22:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2009\/02\/yes.html"},"modified":"2009-02-22T22:58:03","modified_gmt":"2009-02-22T22:58:03","slug":"yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2009\/02\/yes.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is much going on and, you will not be surprised to know, a great deal of thought and emotion and prayer.
\nIn the past two and a half weeks, I have filled two Muji notebooks and should be completely dehydrated from fluid loss at this point.\u00a0 I could write ten blog posts a day but that would be self-indulgent, and I think we all benefit more when this is a bit filtered. For example, if I had blogged the story below right after it happened, it would only have been half the story, as it turns out. Perhaps less than half.
\nNot that I am quite that purposeful about what I blog. I do not outline or plan what emerges here.\u00a0 It just happens. For what it’s worth.
\n***
\nI am still operating at a level of unreality. The whole thing still seems absurd and not right. But perhaps that is because death is absurd and not right, which is the point of Jesus making it right.
\n***
\nLast Tuesday, a memorial Mass in Michael’s honor took place at the Cathedral here. It was very nice, with lots of people in attendance – and remember Michael had only been here since June.\u00a0 He had made an impression.
\nIt was also infused with that air of unreality for me. As in, I sat there through most of it thinking, Why am in the Cathedral in Birmingham, Alabama, listening to people say nice things about Michael who can’t be, but apparently is dead?<\/em>
\nThe bishop preached a homily that was substantive, Scripture-centered, focused and, I might dare to say, charming because in that homily he gave Michael due and affectionate credit for keeping him on track, reminding him to keep his preaching substantive, Scripture-centered and focused.
\nAfter Mass, after the reception, a person who had been attendance asked to see me. He had something he needed to tell me.
\nHe had never met either Michael or me before, although he knew of us both. Since Michael had died, he had kept us in his prayers – all sorts of prayer.
\nHe told me he had a message for me, and that he was certain this message was from God, for it had come to him during prayer, unbidden, out of the blue.
\nI gripped the desk. For this was truly a Michael moment. Michael who was fascinated by mysticism, who had taught discernment of spirits, who had interviewed purported visionaries on behalf of the Church, who could reel off a list of his own experiences of the transparency between here and eternity.
\n“Tell Amy,” this person said, “that Michael is watching out for her and that he says the answer is ‘yes.’<\/em> ”
\nHe threw up his hands, as if to say, And so it is. I’m just the messenger. <\/em>He repeated it. “That’s the message.”
\nThe answer is yes.<\/em>
\nBut what was the question?
\nI pondered this, but tried not to overthink it.\u00a0 I tried to open myself to let the question be raised without too much input from me.
\nAt first, I thought it was one thing – that came to me fairly quickly. Then a couple of days later, I thought it might be another.
\nThen today, we were sitting at Mass, and the second reading was proclaimed:
\nI swear by God\u2019s truth, there is no Yes and No about what we say to you. The Son of God, the Christ Jesus that we proclaimed among you\u00a0\u2013 I mean Silvanus and Timothy and I\u00a0\u2013 was never Yes and No: with him it was always Yes, and however many the promises God made, the Yes to them all is in him.<\/em>
\nI understood. I think I understood, for I can never be too definite about these things. But the conviction swept over me, and along with it, peace.
\nMichael knew me, and one of the things he knew about me was about my natural tendency to skepticism and my struggle with doubt. He knew that, for example, this is one of the reasons I am so affected by the work of Pope Benedict.\u00a0 His work reflects a familiarity with doubt.
\nLord help my unbelief.<\/em>
\nIt was sort of a joke between us – him calling me to task for my skepticism, for my overthinking.\u00a0 A skepticism which is not\u00a0 a desire that these things be false or a seeking to disprove, but a yearning for definitiveness, for the experience of certainty that touches more than my intellect. I have experienced this certainty at times – rare times –\u00a0 but I will freely admit that while I actually find the intellectual claims of theism and Christianity convincing, something always still nags. A hunger, I suppose, for a full embrace of Love.
\nAnd the answer is yes<\/em>.
\nYou may discount it if you wish. Feel free. I hesitate to even write this, but not too much.\u00a0 I will not overexplain, but the way everything about these experiences almost three weeks ago now, last week and today knit together, I am certain what the question is. It is my question. My essential question, which Michael knows very well.
\nAnd he says that the answer is Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is much going on and, you will not be surprised to know, a great deal of thought and emotion and prayer. In the past two and a half weeks, I have filled two Muji notebooks and should be completely dehydrated from fluid loss at this point.\u00a0 I could write ten blog posts a day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nYes - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2009\/02\/yes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Yes - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is much going on and, you will not be surprised to know, a great deal of thought and emotion and prayer. In the past two and a half weeks, I have filled two Muji notebooks and should be completely dehydrated from fluid loss at this point.\u00a0 I could write ten blog posts a day…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2009\/02\/yes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-22T22:58:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Yes - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2009\/02\/yes.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Yes - Via Media","og_description":"There is much going on and, you will not be surprised to know, a great deal of thought and emotion and prayer. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}