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There is no closer bond than the one which gratefulness celebrates: the bond between giver and thanksgiver. Everything is a gift. Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless “yes” to belonging. Can our world survive without it? Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: To say an unconditional “yes” to the mutual belonging of all beings will make this a more joyful world. This is the reason why Yes is my favorite synonym for God.

Francis was aware that they were a strange, perhaps frightening sight—twelve unkempt beggars walking purposefully along like a band of robbers. But he hoped their singing and their joy, the blessings they freely gave disarmed all fear and hostility.

Like the two criminals on either side of Jesus, our choice is between what we want and what is needed, between the will of our own desires and the will of God. To follow Christ means a willingness to surrender all, even to the point of losing one’s life for God’s sake. To surrender all is to embrace the vulnerability and openness of love, while the concomitant and alternative side of that passion is the inevitability of suffering. To follow Christ, in its simplest articulation, is to love. And love we must.

Living in the second half of life, I no longer have to prove that I or my group is the best, that my ethnicity is superior, that my religion is the only one that God loves, or that my role and place in society deserve superior treatment. I am not preoccupied with collecting more goods and services; quite simply, my desire and effort—every day—is to pay back, to give back to the world a bit of what I have received. I now realize that I have been gratuitously given to—from the universe, from society, and from God.