Questions

I came across something interesting in my daily meditations that seemed to be a point to consider. In On the Threshold of Transformation, Rohr states:

Education (both secular and religious), has for many years given people easy answers to questions that they weren't even asking. People accept the answers too quickly, and those answers sink in a about an inch deep…some of those shallow answers become he truths that people spout for the rest of their lives. This kind of easily won knowledge can pass away as quickly as it came. 

…sometimes we use the easy answers to avoid the real questions. Because we know the answer already, we stop searching. We sit down and remain stationary rather than stepping into the difficult journey of hard-won faith.

I think that this stems from two things: our need to rescue/be rescued and our insatiable desire to have all of the answers. It seems like we rescue people from having to suffer through the journey, through processing through the gritty, gristle of life. We probably went through the same thing, and therefore, they shouldn't have to experience the pain and inadvertently, learn something valuable. Things have to be wrestled down and from my observations, we have been robbed of finding answers. We also subsequently then rob others of answers that they were not even seeking. In truth, there is something so rewarding in the experiences that cause us to become learners.

The other side is spiritual machismo, as Andrew Shearman would call it. The type of person who holds all information and "truth." We love lording answers over others, as we are the funnel for their answers. To us, we figured out the answers, therefore, why don't they come to us for the answers? It massages the ego and validates us in such a perverse way. It illegitimately fulfills a desire on the inside of us to be valued and accredited. If we have all of the answers, what happens to the quest that we are on? 

I know it is something that I am still continually working through because it's hard not wanting to rescue people from the feeling of brokenness and abandonment because they are brutal. We have all been in process and were looking for the quick way out because we hate the way it feels. I currently do field support for Real Life and there are moments leaders have to walk through some stuff. And the last thing, we want to do is rob them of the discovery. 

I am left with another quote from Rohr, particularly directed toward men, "The male quest is always about clarifying questions…a man will not go on a quest until he begins to ask the right questions. It is by learning the questions slowly and attentively that we are drawn into the depth of things and, frankly, the sadness of things, and into compassion."