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Unanswerable Questions

It seems that we are endlessly confronted with realities that confound, enrage, and incense. We sift through their rubble for the smallest shard of meaning. We search for clues, breadcrumbs, anything that will put our tired minds and broken hearts at rest. And for all of this striving, it is rarely with measurable result.

We are always left with more questions than answers.

Rainer Maria Rilke offers us well-known words on the subject:

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. 

Easier said than done.We know the value of living the questions. We also know the discomfort inherent in not having (and offering) answers. 

A case in point: When we are with someone who is grieving we know to not speak a single platitude (e.g., “God has a plan.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”). We know to not try to make sense of what has happened. We know to not talk about our own feelings. We know to not offer answers to questions that cannot be answered.

I know this . . . and . . . in my discomfort over others’ discomfort, I have rushed to possible explanations, to next steps, even to hope many, many times. As recently as last week, I SO wanted to offer some explanation for life’s unfathomable cruelty (even though I don’t have any). I resisted, but barely.

In truth, it’s no different internally than it is externally. If I don’t catch it quickly enough, I slip into a sort-of frantic motion both within and without. I get more busy. I run through a Rolodex of memorized stories in search of logic, affinity, and sense-making. I think and think and think instead of feel. I talk and process and talk some more (even if only to myself). I work and wrestle. I write and write and write. And at the very same time (maybe inherent in these very things), I avoid and dissociate.

Bottom line: I am in search of and in demand of answers all the time! It’s exhausting.

I want to believe there is a gift in unanswerable questions, that there is grace to be found in the midst and the mess of it all.

Here’s what I know, in spite of myself: 

  • Unanswerable questions invite me to remember that I am not in control, that life is impermanent, that *just* being here is worth it – for myself and for others.
  • Unanswerable questions call me “further up and further in” to what and who truly matters.
  • Unanswerable questions require that I sit still instead of run, allow instead of demand, let go instead of grip.
  • Unanswerable questions are not a “pass” from action and agency; rather, they are incentive to stay awake to the need and pain and deserved advocacy that is all around me, all of the time.
  • Unanswerable questions invite me to stay. Stay present. Stay here. Stay put. Stay with.

This all sounds right. I’m sure it is. And yet again, easier said than done.

A confession: 
I’ve deleted almost everything I’ve written today. Paragraphs and paragraphs that have been an attempt to land on something that feels complete, tied up with a bow, hopeful . . . My attempt to provide answers, really.

I know, it’s ironic. And not all that surprising.

So, just this remains:

 . . . there is a gift in unanswerable questions; there is grace to be found in the midst and the mess of it all. 

Though I don’t know how, I still say, “May it be so.”

Permission Granted: the God YOU choose

It used to be, when lost in places of confusion, hurt, or pain, I would turn to the God of whom I’d been told and taught – completely certain that if I just looked hard enough, had faith enough, believed enough, everything would make sense. There had to be an answer, a template, a rubric, a principle to apply.

It never occurred to me that there were no answers. It never occurred to me that perhaps my plight was not because I was doing something wrong (not being good enough, devoted enough, disciplined enough, obedient enough). It never occurred to me that sometimes, oftentimes, things have no rhyme or reason to them at all.

There came a time, not all at once, but over many years, in which I stopped looking to God (at least the one of whom I’d been told and taught). I began to allow questions instead of seeking pat answers. Graciously, maybe even miraculously, I began to look within.

What do I know? What do I feel. What do I desire? What do I believe? What if the God of whom I’d been told and taught isn’t the only one, the only way? What if there is something more? What if I am something more? (Wouldn’t that be something?!?)

As my questions rose, so did my voice. I rejected (at least for a time) an entire interpretive, exegetical history. I articulated my rage at the patriarchy. I swirled and screamed and shouted to whoever would listen and even those who would not. I asked more questions: What of the women? Where is her voice, her perspective, her lens? And if Hers is silenced, missing, ignored, what about mine? These questions did have answers. And I knew them – inherently and intuitively within.

These days, I find and treasure places of rest, overlap, and even healing in which the God(s) of my past and present merge, where the tension is soothed, where I can breathe, where I can imagine, where I can be.

I continue to listen and question and wonder – certain of and comforted by this:

There is no static God, no singular understanding, no immutable truth. This is grace and gift.

Every (attempt at) comprehension throughout the centuries has arisen from someone’s questions, musings, and imagination – their particular culture, philosophy, and way of being – which is ever-changing, ever-evolving. I’m a “someone.” So are you.

If there is an immutable truth, it is this: we have complete and unfettered permission to understand and experience God/the Sacred in ways that speak to, inform, and transform us – uniquely, individually, perfectly.

  • Who might the God/Sacred be that invites us to hear and trust our own brilliance, our own power, our own heart with complete confidence?
  • Who might the God/Sacred be that reminds us of our strength and worth?
  • Who might the God/Sacred be that already dwells within us – waiting, watching, loving, and longing for us to step up, speak out, say yes, say no, say “now”?
  • Who might we be if this was the God/Sacred in whom we believed, trusted, dwelled?

With so much hope that it may be so for you and me both . . .

The Unanswerable Question of “Why”

Every day we are confronted with realities that confound us, enrage us, and break our hearts. We sift through their rubble for the smallest shard of meaning. We search for clues, breadcrumbs, anything that will put our tired minds at rest. And for all of this striving, it is rarely with measurable result.

We know Frederich Buechner’s words are true, but we’re loathe to admit or accept them:

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Do not be afraid.”

Still we fight, wrestle, and do battle with the unanswerable question of “Why?” We are ravenous for an answer.

I am no different than you. I see things I cannot reconcile, no matter how hard I try. Too painful, too diffcult, too impossible, too violent. I can’t shrug my shoulders and move on nor take a dogmatic position that enables me to rail at all who disagree with me. I have to find a way to hold ambivalence, to stay, to allow (though not accept) what I hate and hold on tenaciously to hope.

The only way in which I know how to do such a thing is to go to stories.

Stories of others who have asked the same questions – even more, have somehow lived without their answers. Stories that offer me perspective and wisdom – even more, companionship, kindness, and support. Stories that name and normalize my own – even more, remind me that so many have persevered and survived; that perhaps I will, as well. Stories that remind me that despite so much evidence to the contrary, grace, hope, miracles, and love endure – ever more, ongoing, infinitely, no matter what.

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”
~ Isak Dinesen

Stories are hardly an escape from reality; rather, a visceral and poignant reminder that one profound truth supersedes and wins out over all others (despite evidence to the contrary at times): Stories reveal all that we have in common, all that we share, all the similarity found even (and maybe especially) in difference. When we listen to an ancient myth, though far removed from our day-to-day reality, we see aspects of ourselves. When we hear a fable or fairytale, though hardly the stuff of our lived experience, we see aspects of ourselves. When we watch a film, whether drama, romance, or sci-fi, we see aspects of ourselves. And we see each other.

We must tell stories to be reminded that we are more the same than not. No matter the time period, the culture, the politics, the religion, the lens, the perspective. We are one.

“To hell with facts! We need stories!”
~ Ken Kesey

So let us tell stories. And let us listen to them. Our own. Others’. Any and all we can get our hands and hearts on. Those that break us open and those that bind us back together again. Most of all, those that bind us to one another – again and again and again.

When we do, the inexplicable, unanswerable, and ever-nagging question of “why,” loses a little bit of its power and grace, hope, miracles, and love gain back so much more of theirs. As it should be. As it must be.

May it be so.

 


 

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Song as Metaphor for a Woman’s Journey

For it was there that they asked us,
our captors, for songs,
our oppressors, for joy.
“Sing to us,” they said,
“one of Zion’s songs.”

Oh how could we sing
the song of the Lord
on alien soil? (Psalm 137:3-4)

Kathleen Norris, in her book The Cloister Walk reflects on this psalm by saying,

“These lines have a special poignancy for women: All too often, for reasons of gender, as well as poverty and race, we find that our journey from girlhood to womanhood is an exile to ‘alien soil.’”

How do we sing in the midst of an oppressive patriarchy, when we’re asked to dress pretty and act nice? We may feel that the very language we speak is an ‘oppressor’s tongue.’

How, then, do we sing?

I don’t have an answer. 

I can feel my tendency to jump ahead to a quick and easy answer, to start singing a little jingle. But like those radio commercials that get stuck in your head, my quick and easy answer to this question would be just as insipid, irritating, and shallow. Hardly a beautiful song that’s reflective of my longing for “home” or even acknowledgment that I’m far, far away.

There’s another question worth asking – perhaps as a precursor to the one Norris posits: Do we even know or remember that we’re on “alien soil?”

Probably not. What if we did? What if I did? What aspects of that journey would I need to remember, grieve, mourn, and, while traversing, pray I’m not asked to sing?

Hard to answer. Indeed, hard to sing.

How, then, do we sing? Norris anticipates the quandary and continues, “If the psalm doesn’t offer an answer, it allows us to dwell on the question.”

Maybe, at least for now, its enough to wonder about my “captors,” those things that imprison me; my “oppressors,” those things that keep me (internally and externally) from living freely, fully, richly; my “alien soil,” those places I’ve been led and have sometimes willingly gone that have taken me further and further from “home,” from who I most truly am, from who I most desire to be.

Think I’ll just hum for a bit while I sit longer with her question.

Asking “what-if” questions

These days, at Mars Hill Graduate School, we are considering a lot of “What if” questions:

  • What if you truly loved your neighbor as yourself?
  • What if you were truly willing to enter the heartache of a fallen world?
  • What if you truly believed the gospel could change the world?

They are almost trick questions because, of course, as a Christian, one is almost mandated to answer them in a positive,
definitive, and no-questions-asked sort-of way:

  • Of course I love my neighbor as myself!
  • Of course I’m willing to enter the heartache of a fallen world!
  • Of course I truly believe the gospel can change the world!

The problem is that our lives don’t reflect our oh-so-confident response. At least mine doesn’t.

And that’s why I like these questions.

They provoke me. They prod me. They haunt me. Theyprompt even more questions. And all of this is good.

I wonder if Jesus’ parables didn’t strike a similar chord. He consistently provoked and prodded and haunted – especially those who thought they had all the right answers. They prompted even more questions – still. And all of this is good.

Here are some more “what if” questions:

    • What if I wasn’t afraid to ask questions?
    • What if wasn’t afraid of not getting the answers right? What if I asked more questions of myself,
      others, and even God?
    • What if, indeed?

    All of this is definitely good.