Along with pictures of friends, former students, grandchildren, and other bits of papers, the following words are taped to the wall over my desk.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart …
try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms
and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.
Austrian poet Ranier Maria Rilke (1875-1926) penned these words almost a century ago. They are on my wall in order to remind me that questions and questioning are OK. In fact, the nature of knowing means that I will always be seeking truth, and thus, questions are treasured friends who guide me toward this goal.
And yet, questions can get you into trouble. This is especially true in religious circles. Somewhere along the way the notion of absolute knowing ascended the throne. Now we must have everything figured out, and we can only be dispensers of definite answers. To have questions means that we are unsure of where we stand on matters and that possibly our commitment to God lacks something. Surely, for a Christian leader or teacher to admit uncertainty or ask questions is reckless and irresponsible.
And while there are things that we can (and should) know for certain, questions lead us beyond the realm of our certainty to the hope of knowing more. To admit to questions and to ask questions affirm we are merely creatures hoping to find our way via faith. And as Rilke says, it is only by living these questions that we grow into living the answers. Pretending that every issue is solved or that anomalies do not exist only stunts our growth in faith and belies the fact that mysteries exist before which we stand armed only with questions.
I am fearful of those who can only provide answers and are incapable of raising questions. For these people, questions are an interuption for which they have little time or patience. Rather than admiring the confidence and certainty of these people, I wonder what price they are paying to ignore the questions. On the other hand, I have great respect for the man or woman who humbly says, ‘I do not know’ and is constantly posing penetrating questions that challenge me to think.
We are men and women who live in the hope of knowing God and his truth. To bury the questions is to lie about who we are … to pretend to be someone we are not.
Tags: questions
that’s good stuff.
Thank you. On this, the first day of class, I can honestly say, “I would rather sit for years and dwell on the questions you ask, than speak out of my lack to students.”
I guess I ultimately value learning: its task and its transforming power.
“And yet, questions can get you into trouble. This is especially true in religious circles.”
This is a fact which has found many who have not been patient enough toward all that is unsolved in their heart … and have sought for the answers, which cannot be given them (especially, concerning the awesomeness of God and the deity of Christ) and many other things that are happening in our world today have made them to drift away from the truth.
Indeed, our best teacher (the Holy Spirit) is ever ready to help us filter whatever responses we will receive as we continue to learn by questioning diverse kinds of people from all walks of life.