Thursday, January 9, 2025
Thursday after Epiphany
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Questions
O God, with your judgment endow the king, and with your justice, the king’s son.
This morning I finished listening to Pinocchio. Over and over I remembered pictures from the children’s version I read 65 years ago – pictures of a circus train pulled by donkeys, a bus full of riotously happy boys headed for Toyland, a long wooden nose that grew each time Pinocchio lied. The story fascinated me, at least because I was a probably typical Illinois-boy, leaning hard into first-born entitlement and pushing back on responsibility as best I could. Like Pinocchio.
Then in seventh grade, after I had pulled Ann’s braids one too many times (she sat in front of me in class), Mrs. Smock held me back from lunch for a bit. She upbraided me, so to speak, insisting that I was better than this. She asked me one question.
“Who do you want to grow into in the next six years?” I would graduate from high school at the end of those six years.
Then she offered me a variety of educational opportunities that would turn my mind toward learning rather than being a rascal. I accepted. For the rest of the year she spent time with me learning “new” math, learning to use a base 2 numerical system that would eventually become the language for every computer, and … writing stories. I wrote and wrote and wrote. My first person character died at the end of many of my stories, but I always resurrected to write another one. In a few years the Chicago Tribune accepted an essay I wrote for its weekly Voice of Youth column.
Since that new beginning I’ve been fascinated by questions and stories as two ways to meet and get to know others. And of course I can regularly meet and get to know myself the same way.
Whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
Those words John wrote to his congregation invite every one of us created by God to discover how our friends, and strangers too, experienced their own “begottenment.” How did God conquer the world in your lives? What on earth (and in heaven) have you learned about faith, and what’s happened to you because of it?
Questions invite me to look back and to look forward, starting with how I see things in the present. Twice recently I’ve been offered questions that allow me to think about God and my faith. Jerry Wagner and Jan Richardson love questions too, and they presented several in their various posts. Jerry teaches the Enneagram, and his questions guide me into thinking about my personal style (one-on-one seven) alongside each of the others. Take a look:
-
-
- How do you know something is good and right? And how are you so sure you’re right?
- How do you know what someone needs? And how do you know how to shape-shift to please them?
- How do you know you can finish a project? How do you get organized?
- How do you know when something is authentic and also when something is aesthetically pleasing?
- How do you know something is true? Where do your insights come from?
- How do you know someone is trustworthy? And what are your danger detectors?
- How do you foresee the future? How do you stay so optimistic and hopeful?
- How do you know you’re strong? And how do you sense weakness in others?
- How do you know when something fits and doesn’t fit? What’s your secret for adapting and for resolving conflict?
-
Jan Richardson – poet, painter and retreat leader – shared some of the questions her spiritual director has asked her in their meetings. When I think of spiritual direction I think what Aelred of Rievaulx said about his own meetings in the 14th century:
Here we are, you and I,
 and I hope a third, Christ, is in our midst.
 There is no one now to disturb us;
 there is no one to break in upon our friendly chat,
no man’s prattle or noise of any kind
will creep into this pleasant solitude.
Come now, beloved, open your heart,
and pour into these friendly ears whatsoever you will
 and let us accept gracefully the boon
of this place, time, and leisure.
In a safe, welcoming place like this, a few considered questions open my heart while they challenge my mind. Here are some of the questions Jan considered as she “poured into the friendly ears:”
What’s the invitation?
What do you have energy for?
What can you do where you really are?
What would it take for you not to have any regrets now?
Is there a question for you that has been pivotal in becoming who you are?
Jesus asked questions a lot, often to turn the tables on sly inquisitors, other times to open the hearts of those who loved him. But I think of his coming-out party in Nazareth’s synagogue and realize he often taught by answering questions before they were asked, and inviting his listeners to ponder his words in their hearts.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me … today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
