The theme for this blog has been inspired by the current book I am reading with my small group. It’s called Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen. In the very first chapter the author calls us to live the questions of our lives, both alone and in community, as we seek our mission in the world. He insists that life’s hard questions must be raised, faced, and then lived. This means that we must take time to listen to the questions from within. It also means that we must not dismiss them or be annoyed by them. And we must constantly fight the temptation to offer or accept simple answers.
I am truly convicted that I do not live my questions, and I certainly do not love them, and I (being a psychologist-in-training) am a very bad listener to my own questions. I was taken by the wisdom of Nouwen when he commented that “living the questions runs counter to the mainstream of Christian ministry that wants to impart knowledge to understand, skills to control, and power to conquer. In spiritual listening, we encounter God who cannot be fully understood, we discover realities that cannot be controlled, and we realize that our hope is hidden not in the possession of power but in the confession of weakness”. If I am completely honest with myself, I am not very comfortable with questions that linger without answers. I am not very comfortable with mystery and with lack of control. But yet a part of me longs to encounter the living God of mystery who is way bigger than any of my questions. It is that part that I want to give voice through writing. I do want to become more courageous in listening to the questions from within. I don’t know what this journey will look like exactly, but I invite you to join me. I invite your thoughts, your questions, your reflections as well!
“When God enters into the center of our lives to unmask our illusion of
possessing final solutions and to disarm us with always deeper questions,
we will not necessarily have an easier or simpler life, but certainly a life that is honest,
courageous, and marked with the ongoing search for truth.
Sometimes, in living the questions, answers are found.
More often, as our questions and issues are tested and mature in solitude,
the questions simply dissolve.”
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