“Love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

YES is a world
& in this world of yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds”
– E.E. Cummings –

Yesterday was a Yes day. It was also a historic day in Australia. 79.5% of Australians took part in a non-binding plebiscite to vote about marriage equality – “Can same-sex couples tie the knot?” 61.6% said Yes – providing the government with a clear and decisive mandate to pave the way for full inclusion.

I watched the moment the results were read over and over again. I cried with my friends. The joy was palpable. The various gathering places were awash with rainbow colours and ecstatic and relieved faces. It has been a very long journey that has taken its toll on many. I thought of some of my friends who are no longer with us and who would have loved to have seen this day … this day when a nation said Yes.

There were also people who were bitterly disappointed. Amidst my social media feed people called it a ‘very sad day’, lamenting that only a few are still standing for ‘traditional’ marriage, and there were ominous warnings of doom. Others were more gracious, acknowledging that Australia has spoken and were determined to work together in the future.

I watched some of the faces of people responding to the news closely. People that have had to stay strong, keep a measured tone, even when it was their families and their children who were dragged through the mud in what often became a hostile and ugly debate. Yes broke the most stoic demeanour. Yes has power. Yes opens doors. Yes puts out a Welcome sign and means it. There is magic in yes.

We can all identify with the power of Yes. We feel it when we walk into a room not knowing anyone and we look for that Yes face, the person who will welcome us and acknowledge us. Yes is a finely crafted key that unlocks doors. Yes is the bulldozer that crushes fear. Yes speaks of new opportunities and possibilities. For LGBTIQ people in Australia, Yes has paved the way to equality, inclusion and acceptance.

Yes is the language of the Divine.

As Sally Douglas of Richmond Uniting Church wrote so beautifully,

“The scandalous heart of Christianity is not about sexuality or about hetero-normative relationships. It is about the conviction that in the person of Jesus we glimpse the Divine. And that in this Jesus, as sacred text tells it again and again, we discover the Divine who is outrageously including, forgiving and self-giving. In Jesus, we are confronted with the humble Holy One who heals and nourishes and who continues to challenge all people in the Divine’s self-same compassion dynamic, that cannot be contained or diminished, even by all our violence and death dealing.”

Dear friend, have you ever considered the power of Yes? Perhaps you grew up in a No setting with deeply embedded No ideals. So when you hear Yes you automatically think it must be wrong, heretical or simply not for you? Perhaps it is time to consider and examine the No that you have taken as normative for your life?

Yesterday was Yes day. A Yes day that has, and will continue to change lives. May Yes change yours.