The Discovery Channel says that if you get stuck in
quicksand, the worst thing you can do is struggle. They say that if you fall
into quicksand, “resist the natural instinct to
kick your way out.” Instead, they suggest to “you need to stay calm and lean
back“. Then, “as
you begin floating, slowly start moving your feet“. That’s how you
survive quicksand.
Pretty good advice for surviving questions. I
mean serious death-threatening questions. There are many who don’t deal with
questions at all. So they don’t travel. They set up camp in one spot and stay
there the rest of their lives, risking nothing, endangered by nothing, learning
nothing. But if you want to learn and grow, then it means travel, and it means
maybe falling into the quicksand of questions.
So what do you do? Same thing:
1.
Do
not struggle.
2.
Stay
calm.
3.
Start
moving slowly.
This has worked for me. Once you learn to relax
and allow the questions to come, they eventually lose their threatening
character and will sustain you in order for you to move on. Answers may come
but they never replace the questions. They join together to form a mysterious
thing called Wisdom.
David Hayward is author of Questions are the Answer: nakedpastor and the search for understanding, available now in paperback, priced £9.99.
I have drowned in my own questions but nobody has given me the answers that I want to hear.
ReplyDeleteI like this image. Though, my initial thought was, "Wait, isn't it the questions that will in the end save the church, or faith, or us?" And then again, without drowning in the questions, how can resurrection happen? Perhaps it is not answers we should seek, but the courage of courage and gift of questioning. Thanks for your great critique of the church, your thought provoking and edgy toons, AND your art. I appreciate your voice in the wilderness. Peace - K
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