What do we do with difficult questions?
Photo by Ana Municio on Unsplash
What do we do with difficult questions?
Sometimes we hide difficult questions in a closet, lock the door, and pretend they don’t exist. Other times we try to fix the questions with easy answers so they stop nagging at us. In still others, we look for people who think the same way about the questions so we can yell at those who would think differently, and placate our discomfort with a sense of justification.
At 40 Orchards, we want to move towards difficult questions, and respond to their invitation to wrestle.
Over and again through the years, we have seen what happens when a community comes together with honesty, courage, and spaciousness. In a circle, we can share our vulnerability, and find the strength to dig in. When we excavate the question, we don’t often find the answer. (Sorry to disappoint you if the right answers were what you are hoping for… )
Instead of an answer, we find more questions. In those questions, we find signs pointing us down paths we need to walk. In those paths, we find a new way to move- not because we are certain, but because we are curious, and realize we can no longer stay where we are.
As Rilke says, in facing and struggling with the questions, we learn to then live them, and the point is, to live everything.
When we look at our world right now, we see a few questions looming large:
What do we do about the wars being waged in this violent world?
What do we do about the messed up politics in this country?
But what might it look like to face those questions, and dig in? What are the questions underneath, behind, and around these questions?
On war:
What do we do about the wars being waged in this violent world? Whose side should I take? Is there a side to take? Does God have a side? Did God cause these wars? What do I do with the wars in the Bible that God seems to want? Is God violent? Is God trustworthy to act on behalf of justice and peace? Does God even care? If God doesn’t care, what can l do to act on behalf of justice and peace?
On politics:
What do we do about the messed up politics in this country? Is there a political party that is more “biblical” than another? If I don’t want “the other side” to talk about God in their politics, does that mean I shouldn’t either? What do faith and politics even have to do with each other? Should how I vote be connected to what I believe about God? What if I can’t vote according to my faith because no one lines up with that worldview? What if the person who gets elected lines up even less with what that worldview?
What if there was space to ask all these questions? (And more?)
That’s why we are hosting two conversations at the end of May. On May 30, we are talking about war, rooting the questions in the conquering narratives of Joshua. On May 31, we are talking about politics, rooting in the words of Paul to submit to authorities in Romans 13. These questions are big, so we are spending the day wrestling with them. We want enough time to get underneath the intellectualizing and into the heart of why these questions are hard and what they have to do with our actual lived experiences in day to day life.