"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers. "
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in "Letters to a Young Poet"
We are all familiar with this quote from the poet, Rilke, from a collection of letters he wrote to a young friend of his, an aspiring poet, who had gotten it into his head that he had to know what he was about in life, know what he was doing and who he was, before anything of value could be accomplished with his writing. Rilke was a loner, a social misfit and a wanderer; he found it difficult to stay in one place, to hold a job, to maintain a home, or a relationship. He lacked the ability to read social cues and had minimal tolerance for interpersonal machinations, yet his observations and insight on the human condition are precise, clear and evoke a sense of intense focus and devotion--he could read people and society, and his intellectual prowess made it imperative that he set his soul-readings to poetry. He offered, through his writing, a path from the center of his being towards that of the reader and within the context of his art, crafted a profound "word medicine" that could heal people, giving them the guidance that comes through shining light on the present moment, often illuminating the next step on the journey as well. In spite of his difficulties with interpersonal relationships, it is a mistake to conclude that Rilke lacked the capacity for intimacy as his poetry goes straight to the interior of the heart in ways that can only be accessed by an innate capacity for empathy towards the human condition. Rilke's long familiarity with solitude and silence encouraged him to cultivate a generous wisdom combined with the humility to offer not answers to our questions, but an invitation to "love the questions themselves" and to wait patiently for our lives to speak. We have to write our own path from the still, quiet center of our lives if we are to find our answers.
We're a long distance, now, from Rilke's 19th century world, and it's more than evident that the internet and social networking culture has seduced us into believing that information and knowledge are synonymous. Its fluidity and speed suggest that answers to our most profound and nuanced questions can be found quickly-- all done and dusted by this afternoon--at the latest. We too frequently spend precious, unrepeatable hours scouring forums, anxiously polling online friends for answers to the difficulties of life and those who spend the most time searching seem only to increase their sense of unhappy desperation in the exhausting pursuit of finding someone else to tell them what to do, how to be and where to go for more quick answers. A society that endorses ever increasing speed and almost instantaneous gratification with little thought devoted to differentiating between wants and needs enables and encourages a blinding anxiety and to a purpose: planting seeds of self-doubt and fear creates a market for the unscrupulous and greedy in those who are afraid that there is no remedy for the perceived lack of meaning in their lives and of the corollary that something or someone "out there" has the answers to questions that can only be found "in here". Those who are willing to live out the questions of their lives by patiently accepting that the answers will unfold organically, in their own way, fail the "market test" every time. To live slowly, with purpose, allowing the steady, daily rhythms of life to move us along is a hard sell in a world of 24 hour news cycles where everything from a traffic snarl to an earthquake is "breaking news" and discerning meaning and truth are viewed as almost frivolous endeavors rather than taking their proper role as genuinely pressing and central concerns of human existence.
When I first began writing here, in 2007, I was in the midst of transition--I had lost two of my children in the previous 7 years and had another born with a challenging disability. I was leaving my childbearing years, being then in my late 40's, had three teenage and young adult children going through their own growing pains, and I was leaving a way of working and being in the world that had defined and informed my life for many years. I was responding to a deep leading towards a very different life that was, at the same time, beckoning to me like a homecoming; I was being called inward and towards more depth and focus. I was intensely craving solitude, silence and contemplative action in the world, through my writing and new work involving sacred listening to others, giving them the space to tell their own stories and find their own path. And yes, dear Rilke, some answers have come through living out those questions but they can, of course, only be answered in part--I am still living, and loving, the questions. As another favorite writer, Isak Dineson, once said, "God made the world round so that we could not see too far down the road" and in this, she echoes and reinforces Rilke--we can only live the questions, embrace them, love them, and with humility accept and live with the partial answers as they present themselves.
And now I am 55. My life has sorted itself out pretty well and I am living, imperfectly of course, the quiet, simple and creative life I had been trying to give an affirmative answer to for several years. I have lovingly let go of a number of people in my life over this time, knowing that I was simply unable, or no longer willing, to give them the time and energy they needed from me. I embraced fully a simple truth given me long ago by a very wise woman friend and mentor, "Compassion is mandatory, personal involvement isn't" and with that, I finally accepted the truth that being loving isn't measured by how willing I am to allow others personal dramas to invade my life and disturb my peace. I cannot give to others from a generous spirit if I am being drained by relationships with people whose lives are chaotic and who are living out what psychologist Carl Jung called "Shadow" in unconscious ways. These patterns are not always easy to see when they are taking up space in your life, but one of the many gifts of embracing solitude, quiet and simplicity is that those people and situations that are noisy and disruptive to one's peace become very apparent indeed. I've cultivated some new and already treasured friendships, blending them with deepened and rejuvenated long-term relationships. My long and cherished marriage is thriving and our children are now well launched or close to it and with the recent marriage of our oldest daughter, our family configuration has changed in delightful ways as we've welcomed her lovely husband into the fold. Through all of this, I have more of myself to offer to the world; more love to give, more work to do, and a great and driving energy to do my part to leave a legacy of healing and wholeness behind when I take my leave of this world.
So, my writing going forward will not offer you any answers, but I will accompany you on the road of living the questions. My intention now is to "write a path from the center" of my own life as I respond to the challenges and questions presented by a complex world mired in painful dilemmas and difficulties. I have also come to know other thinkers and writers who are my kin--those I've come to recognize as members of my extended "tribe" and and as my soul-mates and fellow sojourners and I will be introducing you to many of them.
Love and live the questions themselves. Pay attention to the "quotidian mysteries" of your own daily life and work and have trust and faith that the answers will come when they, and you, are ready to welcome them.
