"I once read that adopting a religion does not mean you have learned the answers, or that you have discovered God. It simply means that you are committed to wrestling with it all. You are committed to returning to the thin pages when you don’t feel as if there are any words for you inside. You are committed to speaking to a God you cannot hear, and you are committed to looking for a God you cannot see."

-Design for Mankind

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."  
Martin Luther King, Jr. 


It is so easy to make "I will never" lists based off of one's experiences with the actions of others.  I made a few recently.  And while I'm sure when I get to where they are currently standing, my feet will get stuck in the same mud. But in the meantime, I'm going to write in my journal why I want to do something different.  I'm going to tell a few people around me who I think will be honest with me in 5 years when I start doing the same. But then, after I've written it down, vented and prompted and hoped  to safeguard myself from the inevitable "someday" - it's time to look at how I'm measuring up today.

A similar process had lead me to evaluate how I converse.  I used to think I was a pretty good conversationalist. You could drop me on a couch next to a drunk gay man by the end, we'd be friends.  Equally entertained.  Equally respected.  Friends.  You could bring me to a house party where I knew 3 people and I'd have new jokes and drinks and phone numbers as I closed the door goodnight.

But either I was wrong then, or I've just fallen into the comfort of talking about myself too much, for too long.  It's easy when you have exciting stuff happening - first, everyone is asking over and over and over again, "You just graduated?! What are you going to do next?"  Then it's about your first job, your broken dreams, broken hearts, new dreams, new starts.  You get used to the same questions. The same answers.  The same conversations over and over.   And it's easy - you can ask many of these questions from most friends and strangers alike.  Soon, you forget how to be a conversationalist.  You lose the skill of interesting questions.  You might even lose the habit of asking questions all together, as I have.

It's not that I mean to.  I don't think I'm self-obsessed.  I'm genuinely curious about people and their lives.  I know some of the most exciting young adults - running their own businesses, chasing dreams, traveling, having hilarious and amazing first dates and freak accidents.  But, I just forget to ask them now.  Other people ask, them, or me.  I listen when they talk.  I answer when they ask.

But I'm sick of the same conversations.

I'm sick of walking away realizing, "I didn't ask them how their day was."

And while I know Martin Luther King Jr had a lot more in mind when he penned those words and the danger of perishing together as fools - I'd hate to never learn to really live well with others and perish as a fool, repeating the same conversations over and over, never learning how to draw change and inspiration out of the ones I love.

One of the most incredible feelings is an exhilarating conversation with a like-minded person who sees it all differently - where neither try too hard to drive or stuff the creature into some pre-conceived and pre-desired destination. Co-creating a conversation, two people dropping in all the unique items they brought along and grabbing out what catches their fancy. Together shaping something unexpected, discovering right there on the spot, watching it arrive and take form. Trying to keep up, not with each other, but with this third thing that's feeding off of their minds. Dear God - that feeling makes me feel the blood in my toes!

I'm going to work on conversing. I will have something worthwhile to say and I will seek better answers with better questions. I'll have an answer for the hope that lies within me, and a question for the inspiration hiding with you.



“With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.” 
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

How many times have you heard: "There's no such thing as a stupid question"?

We've all heard it countless times from teachers and coaches and generally kind people.  Well, as I've been training for my new job I've had a lot of time to think on this and ponder what questions to ask and which not to ask.  Having just trained someone myself at my last job (rather, feeling I was constantly training someone for the month or two before I left) I am very aware of how distracting and frustrating it can be for the one responsible to train you.  It makes me wary not to ask too many questions.  You see, there are definitely stupid questions - and what defines them is not so much the questions themselves as the process that lead you to them.  In short, was there a process?  At all?  Did you try to find the answer?  Did you use the bit you already know to try to solve it yourself?  What resources have you already been given?  How about prior experience of how similar things work?  If you haven't asked any of those questions to yourself before - then the one coming out of your mouth is a stupid question.

Sound harsh?  Perhaps.  You can say a prayer for my children now, because I will not be telling them that there is no such thing as a stupid question.  There is nothing more embarrassing to me than asking a question, and then finding the answer myself a minute later.  I feel I need to apologize to the people who's life I have just wasted a piece of.  I will hopefully not ever tell my children "That is a stupid question" - but I will interrogate them as to the process that lead to that question and somehow hopefully train them to be problem-solvers and initiators - the kind of people who can find answers to problems rather than always expect that someone else will solve that problem for them and hand-deliver the answer.   Asking questions is a strength - knowing how to ask the right questions is a bigger strength - and knowing which questions to voice and which to ask yourself is an even bigger strength.

That said, it is better to ask questions than to just do things wrong.  But that doesn't change the fact that stupid questions do exist.  And they waste people's lives.

Jon Pinkston taught me more about the power of asking questions than anyone I've known before or since. It was part of our SLT curriculum, but it was his personal skill in it that was most powerful.  We were taught that it is far better to help another discover a solution or answer themself, by guiding them with accurate and intelligent questions than to just hand them the answer.  And I witnessed and experienced that in my own life as every week he would ask each of us questions that sparked new revelations and convictions - that we earned and fought for and weren't just told.  I own those beliefs in a much stronger way.  I think I grew more through those two years of weekly one-hour meetings than I did through the year before in Masters Commission... and that's saying something.  Questions, intelligent, well-thought-out and aptly spoken questions are truly powerful things that can open ourselves and others up to new thoughts, ideas, solutions, answers and convictions.  They can change our perspectives - and that's a much harder thing to do than most of us realize.

So here's to us all growing more in our skills regarding asking questions... wherever we are at today.
And please, don't ask stupid questions.