Living the Questions, Today

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. 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 far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 in Letters to a Young Poet

It’s been over ten years since I first read this quote, thanks to Carolyn Arends and her life-changing book ‘Living the Questions’. I have spent those ten years continually looking for the beauty and hope in this truth. Sometimes it’s been a battle to the death- the death of something broken in me. Sometimes the truth has been found in a moment of resolute relinquishment. Sometimes I simply gave up searching…. And in that space, found the truth.

Today my questions are much bigger, and perhaps more frightening, than I could of imagined at 18. How do you comfort a 30-something friend diagnosed with cancer, who doesn’t know the power of love and redemption? Will I ever know the intimacy of a soul mate? What would it look like to no longer live in fear of chronic depression and anxiety?

But like I did at 18, I still believe in God. The God of infinite mystery, yes, but also the God of infinite grace and love and HOPE. That belief is what ultimately drives me to keep living the questions… and waiting for the answers. At 18 I couldn’t be given some of the answers I asked of God. I now know I was incapable of understanding. But slowly, through the mess and beauty of life placed before me, God has granted a few answers. Enough to keep me believing and enough to keep me asking.

And though I have yet to learn the answers to today’s questions, I live in the hope that the God of mystery will help me to live each day to the fullest.

As Switchfoot says in their song ‘Meant to live’:

Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open

Maybe we're bent and broken…

…We were meant to live for so much more

That’s my answer, and my question, for today.

Resolutions Schmesolutions

During a road trip in the final days of 2010, a friend asked me if I was going to make new years resolutions.

1^st response: cynical laughter.

2^nd response: No! If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s not to make plans – life changes them anyway!

And now my 3^rd response: I’m a planner. I like making lists. I prefer predictability.... and I struggle with change.

But the reality is that life happens. I get Glandular Fever and Post-Viral Syndrome. My mentor suffers a massive stroke and endures multiple brain surgeries. The medication that helps manage long-term Depression, robs me of the ability to concentrate for long periods of time (making study and my love of reading difficult activities).

And so how can I reconcile these things and look ahead to the new year of 2011?

I am reminded of the old Carolyn Arends songs New Year’s Day; while slightly corny, it is definitely profound. After suggesting that we treat every day like it’s a new year’s day, the bridge says:

Every day is...
one more chance to start all over
one more chance to change and grow
one more chance to grab a hold of grace
and never let it go
New Year's Day - Carolyn Arends 1997

Perhaps in reflecting on the year that’s been and planning for the year ahead I should focus more on my hopes and dreams, my ability to grow and adapt and transform the way I see myself and the world and the God who created it all.

I’m not sure yet how to achieve this... there is still plenty of things I’d like to accomplish this year (finally finish my BA for instance!). But I’d like to resolve to LIVE more, to see beauty, seek justice, be intentional in my relationships, be creative... and when unexpected things come along to embrace them, experience and grow through them.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

P.S. Of course, I couldn't resist, and in the last few days have jotted down a number of goals for 2011! But I hope I can be more lenient with them. I don't want to measure my success or failure in 2011 simply by whether I achieved my goals or not.

Brokeness and Fellowship

Reading: academic journal articles times a billion (the end of semester looms), A Common Prayer ~ Leunig

Listening to: Live under lights and wire ~ Sandra McCracken, Love was here first ~ Carolyn Arends (Thanks, Carolyn for another superb album!)

--------------

I have spent so many years learning to live with unanswered questions and prayers. My faith has grown incredibly in dry, desert-like places. And everytime I start to think I have it sorted, that I'm getting better at trusting and letting go... I realise I don't and I'm not.

The last few months have been hard and dark. I have experienced a new episode of the clinical depression and anxiety that I have struggled with on and off for around 12 years. And while there is a daily battle against hopelessness, fear, lethargy and lack of concentration; the biggest battle is against my own mind and soul.

And while I'm struggling, I see so many around me in pain and it feels some days like the world is falling apart....

- There's my dear friend and mentor who despite having so much hope and love and passion to give, is trapped in a body riddled with the ever mysterious Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

- A couple I know, having both survived serious alcoholism, substance abuse and addictions, came to faith. Now they continue to struggle against temptation, the physical and psychological after-affects of their past, mental illness and financial debt, among other things. Last week our small group heard that every time we pray for them things get worse in the ensuing days... causing us to pray even harder...

- Another dear friend admitted to me recently that she has taken drugs and forced herself to throw up in an attempt to manage her weight issues (caused largely by a medical condition), because her mum constantly hassles her about her weight.

- A woman who has already endured more than her share of injustice, abuse and pain in her life, is watching her 12-year-old son attempt suicide multiple times and fall through the cracks of the broken mental health system.

Just to name a few....

Despite my lack of understanding and answers, there is one lesson I am learning at the moment: Our brokeness is a place for grace and love and joy and hope to arrive in fresh ways.

For a number of months my best friend and I had only been exchanging random texts and emails that were few and far between. I accused her of not being the kind of friend I needed at a critical time. She graciously accepted my accusation and apologised for her lack of follow-through. Soon after, I discovered that while she had no idea what I was going through, I had no idea that she had been struggling with deep and painful wounds herself.

Amongst the tears and apologies, I began to catch a glimpse of an important truth. Whilst we might fear sharing our pain with others because of their own burdens, it is precisely in the sharing of pain that the miracle of God's hope and peace begin to break through.

As my friend and I became more honest with each other, what could have been an overwhelming amount of pain miraculously became easier to handle. I began to have a sense of hope and peace that passed all understanding. On Wednesday nights, as my small group gathers, we share and cry and pray and hope together. Somehow, in our combined brokenness we are not overwhelmed, we are encouraged and sustained. I can't explain why this happens or how, but I know without a doubt that God is - and that he is breaking through the brokeness.

So while life is hard, while we might feel so broken there is no hope, while faith does not seem to always hold the answers..... I pray that we can allow ourselves to be broken. I pray we can allow ourselves to share our brokeness. And I pray that in our shared pain we will witness God's miraculous grace and love and peace and joy and hope.

'God bless the lost, the confused, the unsure, the bewildered, the puzzled,
the mystified, the baffled, and the perplexed. AMEN' ~ Leunig

Doubt and Questions and Hope

Reading: Wrestling the Angels ~Carolyn Arends (for the 10th time!)
Listening to: The Day of Small Things ~Alli Rogers




The day is coming
Darkness is turning to light

Questions are still questions
Doubt endures
But somehow the hope is relentless


The light reveals a new chapter
The story is still being written with each step

Questions are still questions
Doubt endures
But somehow grace breaks through

And though the sun rises
There is still darkness alive in us
And though the sun rises
Questions are still questions
Doubt endures
But somehow love frees us