Ask the questions...

So, normally, when we have a paper to write for school, the traditional thought process is that it´s going to be about conclusions. Right? We all know the drill. Thesis statement, expand on three supporting facts, wrap it all up with a nice conclusion paragraph...

Yeah, so, every month for HNGR we have to write a 5 or 10 page paper responding to some quotes from our assigned readings for the month. I finished my August one on Saturday and sent it in.

My final 6 page paper had FIFTEEN question marks in it. Almost every single paragraph ended in a question mark... and the one that didn´t ended in the sentence, "I don´t know" (and was preceded by a sentence which ended in a question mark). And we´re not talking like, question marks at the end of rhetorical questions I used to make my brilliant (conclusive) points... The paper had fifteen question marks because that´s what the responses of my heart AND mind are to the readings this month, and to the specific quotes on which I was writing. Questions, questions, and more questions. A few conclusions ("God cares about the poor??"), but I´m slightly scared to make them because they´re DEFINITELY going to lead me to even more questions ("So what do I do now?").

After I sent the paper to the HNGR office, I sent a personal email to Dr. Robinson, HNGR´s faithful director. Basically just pointing out everything I just wrote here- uhh, I feel like normally I try to make statements when I write papers! But I´m not in a place to do that right now. Is that okay?? Is that normal? What the heck, please?

He wrote back that yes, it is fine and even great that everything here is leading me to questions- quote from his email, "I think the hallmark of a liberal arts education is not to provide you with the answers, but to teach you to ask the questions. This is also, I believe, the essence of the life of faith...". I love that. (Maybe because it´s also the essence of the life as the daughter of two psychotherapists! ;-)).

And he included this quotation from Rilke:

"...Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart
And try to love the questions themselves
Like locked rooms and like books
That are written in a very foreign tongue.
Don’t search for the answers,
Which could not be given to you now,
Because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday in the future,
You will gradually, without even noticing it,
Live your way into the answer."

OK then. I´ll keep asking them. And trying to live them, even if falteringly.

(This entire interaction, by the way, is a really good example of why I love Wheaton professors SO much. They really are just that amazing.)


OK, so I wasn´t planning on including this part, but, I just decided that I´m going to!... here´s one of the quotes I was responding to, and a few of the questions I am asking, in my paper and my heart.

“God always takes His stand unconditionally and passionately on this side and on this side alone: Against the lofty and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on behalf of those who are denied and deprived of it". -Karl Barth. How do you react to this?

Bits from my paper:
"My first reaction to this quote, and to all other ones similar to it in other pieces of writing and especially in the Bible, is to be really freaked out." (Yeah, I used the phrase "freaked out" in a formal essay. How great a writer am I, not.)
"...Deep down, don´t my lifestyle decisions say that I believe that I am “different” from the people I see here? That somehow, my “needs” are different- I just need more. Or even that I secretly believe that I deserve more??"
"...And when it comes to “identification”, if my life is structured around avoiding suffering, how am I going to be able to truly identify with those who suffer?"
"...Do the poor know my Lord in a way I don’t… are there sides to Him they get to see that I cannot?"


And in case anyone´s wondering what these readings are, there have been several but the biggest one was:

Missions and Money by Jonathan Bonk
as well as The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead by Elsa Tamez.