Questions and Answers

What good are questions without answers?
What good are answers without questions?
Two sides of the same coin, they provide balance in our seeking. Answers, no matter how clear or compelling, still beg the questions:
What if?
What now?
Why?
And questions, no matter their breadth and depth or cosmic inspiration, yearn for at least the hint of an answer.
The big questions, what should I do with my life, what should my vocation be, who should I spend my life with, what’s the point of it all-- are questions we wonder and think about, the ones that won’t leave us alone. They are part of the big Mystery we are drawn to.
We find ourselves frustrated, even exasperated, as we seek answers to questions that seem to have no answer, or at least, not the answer that we want.
But is that really true?
Sometimes we have to live the question, knowing the question itself is part of the answer.
Part of the process that allows us in time to understand the difference between what we want and what we need.
Embracing the Mystery in search of answers reveals while we may be along for the ride, we are not in charge.
We do not have to open our eyes, minds and hearts so wide to at least suspect if not believe, that there is something in the universe greater than us; greater than our capacity to understand the invisible that lives within and beyond what we can see.
Something is going on behind the curtain of our consciousness.
We can hear it in the rustle of leaves, in the hush of twilight. Inhaling and exhaling, there are those times when we feel the eternal breath wash over us if but only for a fleeting moment.
We become aware that we do not control outcomes. Even if we do everything right, a failed relationship, the unexpected loss of a loved one or some other personal catastrophe leaves us bewildered and lost. Our careful calculations, the premium insurance policy we purchased, and even our religious beliefs and professions are often not enough when sorrow and suffering come calling.
Every day hundreds of thousands of people like us all over the world leave for work and other activities not realizing that they will not be returning to the place they call home. The goodbyes they offered their spouses and children would be the last they would give voice to in this life.
There are those moments when we have run out of time. Our backs against the wall and the last of our hope almost gone, a thread of light pierces the dark night of our soul.
What we thought was the end, turns out to be a new beginning.
In the deepest part of ourselves, we desire an ultimate connection to the hidden order of things, a sense of relationship that will allow us to feel more at home in the world we inhabit.
We keep climbing the ladders set before us, climbing up and falling down, falling down and climbing up.
No matter how many times we try or how high we ascend, we come to know that what we seek is not a high mark of achievement, not even where we started from, but where we are returning to.
The straight line of success we thought we wanted turns instead, to be a circle that leads us back to restoration and reconciliation with where we began.
Leaving and returning are timeless themes in our living out the big questions of our lives.
We have to leave in order to return to the place a part of us has never left.
We hope for a welcome mat, not a locked door.
Asking the right questions is more important than the answers we seek.
We know less than we think we do.
It’s not about how long we live or how many trophies we have acquired, but instead about how deeply we have loved and generously we have given of ourselves away in service to others.