QUESTIONS

The month of April finds me letting the holes we drilled in our maple trees slowly heal and close up, disinfecting and putting away all the “sap to syrup tools of the trade” until next February, and taking hold of a dominating theme. Later this month, I’ll be animating a virtual retreat on the “Life Changing Questions Jesus Asked,” and so I find myself consumed by the nature and dynamic of asking and answering questions!

Human beings experience questions on a daily basis…how are you? what’s the weather going to be like? are you busy tomorrow? Many of the questions addressed to us or that we address to others are our way of communicating, finding out information, showing our interest. In the field of education, questioning is a time-honored dynamic that creates a space for the learner to think, and to dig deep inside at times for a meaningful response. Socrates comes to mind for sure! Jesus, as a typical rabbi of his day, asked his listeners many questions…some scholars estimate that he asked 307 of them, and that this practice was a central part of his teaching. In our retreat time together this month, we will be breaking open a few of these questions that penetrated the one being asked…questions that didn’t have a yes or no answer…like, “do you want to be well?” “Why are you so afraid?” “You have eyes…can’t you see?” “Aren’t you worth more than the birds?” These questions, often not answered, led the listener to a complete change of heart, and opened for them a new way of seeing and understanding things. Jesus asked dynamic questions, gave a “wait-time” for a response or didn’t necessarily want an answer, and frequently let his question lead into a good story!!

This month I’m going to pay attention to the questions I ask people, and try to intentionally ask the kind of questions that invite more reflection and might even begin in the person a different point of view. Here’s an April question for you! What would you like to see change in your life that might be missing right now? It’s an April question because it mimics what is stirring all around us outside as Spring works its magic! It invites some necessary introspection and might even be a first, tiny step toward more meaningful days! I invite you to join me in asking great questions this month! We may discover an urging to answer those questions for ourselves as well!

April will bring the proverbial showers that imply mud season so essential to the growth this new season is all about. For some of us, April will mean the journey of Lent will culminate with Holy Week rituals and a joyous Easter celebration. Eighteen people will surround me at our table this Easter after a chaotic but treasured egg hunt complete with rhyming clues! This month will also entail yard work and gardening: a yearly task that bonds us with animals coming out of hibernation, birds building nests, and the greening of all things around us that can literally take us by storm. Don’t miss it!!! ….it begins at a snail’s pace but explodes while we are busy with “other things.” Even after already experiencing 73 Springs, why does it still take my breath away? I guess that’s another April question…

A poem and an image:

Christina Rossetti, ‘Spring‘.

There is no time like Spring,
When life’s alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track –
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack, –
Before the daisy grows a common flower
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour…