I changed the title of my blog today from "Living in the Now" to "Living in the Question". Not that anyone cares (except me!), but it seemed more descriptive of how I was actually blogging. I'm not consistent enough with blogging to talk about living in the now... ha! It seems that most of why I write is to wrestle with questions, paradoxes and tensions and, indeed, my life always seems to be full of them, so I have plenty of material. I like the quote by Rainer Maria Rilke in the header and am challenged to love the questions and live the questions. After all, if my life is full of questions and I wait to really live until they've all been answered, I'll never live.
Our culture is so "answer" oriented that holding the tension of an unanswered question is practically intolerable. We want life wrapped up; nailed down... But, if we're honest, it's in that messy tension of "not quite, almost, unsure" that most of us live. Questions destabilize us and we worry that a question might knock out the foundations of things we already knew or were comfortable with. Living with a question is disconcerting at best.
I like what Sue Monk Kidd says:
There's an art to living your questions. You peel them. You listen to them. You let them spawn new questions. You hold the unknowing inside. You linger with it instead of rushing into half-baked answers.... those who "loiter" in the question long enough will "live into" the answer. "Seek and ye shall find," said Jesus (Matt. 7:7). I sometimes read that as, "Seek long enough and ye shall find." You see, it's the patient act of dwelling in the darkness of a question that eventually unravels the answer.
May I be patient in the question... may I loiter long enough to live into the answer... may I get comfortable with discomfort...
About Me
- Susie
- San Francisco, CA, United States
- I grew up in Honduras and Guatemala, daughter of missionary parents. When it came time for college, I went to Arizona State University where I met Bob. We married in 1979. 1982 was a big year for us...we started having a family AND we joined Wycliffe. We worked in the administration of Wycliffe for the next 23 years. We have two boys, a girl and a new son-in-law! (Jonathan, David, Rachel and Matt, respectively.) We've lived in Arizona, Southern California, Papua New Guinea, Texas, Florida and we're now back in California and loving San Francisco! Through Lockton Insurance Brokers, Bob is using his CPA and attorney background to put together sophisticated insurance deals for major non-profits. We have some amazing stories and life has been good...and by "good" I don't mean "perfect".
4 comments:
Wow. This is deep and inspiring. Helps alleviate the pressure to always have an answer.
This poem by Emily Dickinson (and elaborated on by Eugene Peterson in his book) sounds appropriate here:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---
I recommend the book by Peterson, by the way.
The book by Peterson, by the way, is:
Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers.
Available at Amazon, of course.
Very true, Susie! Sometimes, it seems like the question might last forever. I guess that needs to be OK, too.
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