Living the Question

"Community of Light "
Copywrite 2005

We often rush to find an answer to our question because we are seeking resolution. Sometimes, what we must do is spend some time in the question, trying it out, shifting it around, staying with it a while.

Marilee Goldberg, writing in her book The Art of the Question addresses the importance of questions versus answers in this paragraph:

We live in an answer-oriented, fix-it-quick world. In the clamor for answers – sometimes any answer- we often overlook quiet distinctions and fresh perspectives, which could reveal whole new worlds of possibilities. Moreover, sometimes the conditional hunt for answers represents a desperate attachment to “knowing” and a simultaneous avoidance of any anxiety associated with not knowing, or even appearing not to know. This is ironic as well as unfortunate, for often the most bountiful answers are born only after long periods of gestation or living with not knowing. (end quote)

In one group, I started with the question about how to create community for my daughter. Soon, my question shifted to “What is community?” I spent many months paying attention to my local community, collecting stories, telling stories before I began to truly understand the meaning of community and the rich community surrounded my family and me. It was important for me to understand and ‘see” my own community as the natural step toward supporting my daughter’s membership.