Pineridge Blog

I want to invite you to consider some non-traditional practices in these weeks of Lent as we prepare for Easter. 

Our continuing practice for Lent will be Music and Meditation Sunday at 9:50, prior to worship.  In the last few weeks I have invited you to consider adding a discipline of Gratitude, an awareness of Wonder and this week I hope you will simply ask great questions.

Jayne Davis wrote, “There are benefits to being the dumbest person in the room. I am not talking about intelligence; I’m talking about listening from a posture of not knowing, of curiosity. It is a skill that every good coach knows. So often we feel like we must have all the answers, or at least act like we do. But when we give ourselves permission to ask questions, instead of offering answers, we get to journey with our people on their own road of discovery. Think about the questions Jesus asked his disciples. “What do you want?” “Who do you say that I am?” Questions that provoked thought and internal wrestling. Jesus did not manipulate them to a predetermined answer but gave them space to make their faith their own, to develop the internal understanding that leadership required of them.

Sometimes people give up something for Lent, this week I invite you to give up thinking that you know the answer.  I have notice that too often opinions are disguised as questions. Someone will ask, “Don’t you think…?,” which usually means, “This is what I think, and don’t you agree with me?”

Asking good questions are really an art.  Rather than “Don’t you think…?” a better question is “Do you think about…?” And an even better question is more open ended, “What do you think about…?”  And the best question of all honors the “….”  By that I mean the question includes room for the other to ponder before they give an answer. The best questions are ones that someone can’t answer right away but needs a moment to consider.

If there was ever anyone who could claim to have all the right answers it would have been Jesus. He was the, “Word made flesh.” In some senses he really was the answer, but he was also the question made flesh.  He understood that it in the best questions that we meet God….