Loving the Questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

I’ll never forget the reactions people gave me when I told them I was going to seminary.

There was the uncomfortable silence of my co-workers, not knowing where to put their eyes. I think they thought I was going to glow or something. One or two mumbled a congratulations and nothing more was said.

My mother simply could not understand choosing to leave a well-paying job, in which I had just received a sizable promotion, to pursue poverty as a minister. I reminded her that I told her when I was five I wanted to be a preacher. Her response was, “Well, I know that. But still….”

Thirty percent of my former Baptist church was thrilled for me. The other seventy percent looked at me with a wary eye, branding me a liberal for expecting ordination whilst still sporting breasts.

But my favorite response was from a distant cousin with whom I spoke as we were trying to fill the conversation void at a family funeral. He wished me well and hoped, for my sake, that I wouldn’t lose my faith in seminary. He’d known many a young man who had gone off to study God, only to realize that the Bible was not as unerring as they’d been taught and that belief in Jesus was optional. In his recollections, these young men returned to church with an air of being enlightened. In my cousin’s opinion, they were anathema.

I was fairly insulted. I mean, what kind of faith did he think I have that could be so easily eroded by a few classes and a degree? And I’m not a young man. Never have been.

Two degrees later and many years removed from my seminary experience, I understand what he was trying to tell me. He was hoping that I wouldn’t change, that my faith would remain the same faith as when I walked through the doors, that my comprehension of what scripture said and why would remain untouched throughout my tenure there. Because somehow learning more about the foundations of my faith could be harmful to its health.

He was afraid for me and for himself that learning more, meant trusting less. He was afraid of questions that have no answers. He was afraid of looking the fool in the face of facts, because in his world the two could not coexist.

Knowledge has often been the scapegoat of faithful people. Look at the subtext of the Garden of Eden story. One interpretation is that had we not sinned, we’d be blissfully living in ignorance, as if that were a goal we should strive for today.

To fear learning must be a terrible thing. To fear knowing must be terrifying. To fear questions must be perpetual imprisonment. `

I did not take the well-intended advice of my cousin. I bit the apple. Fortunately the knowledge I gained in my time at seminary was a blessing, not a curse.

Despite his fears, seminary did not endow me with some high-fallootin’ philosophy of how the world worked. I did not become brilliant or super-religious or perfect. (Although I would have paid good money for perfection.) And despite what folks may think, I don’t have a hot-line to God any more than they do.

What I did get was a new vocabulary that allowed me to finally ask the bigger questions of life. Can you imagine going through life trying to describe chocolate without any words relating to it? That’s how most of my life felt, not knowing where to go or how to ask or what to even question about my faith. All I knew was that I wanted to be in a place that allowed the questions and gave me the ability to voice them without judgement.

The only enlightenment I obtained was the realization that I don’t have the answers anymore than anyone else does. There are things I will never understand, like why three-year-olds get leukemia or why sociopaths exist. There aren’t answers to these questions, and they challenge and change my faith. Still, I have to ask, discuss, and listen to other points of view. Because if we can’t find the answer together, at least we can stand together in the mystery.

I hope that’s what this blog will be: a place where the questions aren’t feared, but revered and loved and struggled with and wept over. I doubt any answers will be found to the larger questions of life, but that’s not the point. The point is to wade into them together and let them wash over you and carry you to a place different from where you started. Asking questions and seeking answers will most certainly change you and your faith. But faith is not a stagnant thing that once found, never changes. Faith is found in an uncertain journey, allowing ourselves to go to the dark recesses of our humanity and shine some light.