David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this blog post with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2021 by David Spangler.
This month, I’m recovering from dental surgery and preparing to have cataracts removed over the next three weeks. Fun! I’m actually very thankful that medical science has progressed to where these surgeries are possible and my vision, which has been getting increasingly blurry, will be restored. But it does mean I haven’t had much energy or focus for writing a new David’s Desk.
Ironically, nine years ago, I was in a similar situation. The David’s Desk I wrote then seems perfectly fit for now, so while I recover, I’m offering the following repeat. The questions I ask are still just as important.
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THE PARTNERING QUESTIONS
This month finds me convalescing from two major surgeries and a time in the hospital. While I am recovering steadily, I am not quite back to being able to sit at the computer for very long to write, so this essay will be shorter than usual. But it’s no less heartfelt for being brief.
There are Big Questions that confront us in life. We’re all familiar with them: Who Am I? Where Did I Come From And Why? Where Am I Going? What Is My Life’s Purpose? What Is The Meaning Of It All?
It used to be that religion and spirituality were the main avenues for finding answers to these mysteries; then philosophy stepped in and added its contributions. For the past two centuries, it’s been Science’s turn to have a crack at them.
There’s no argument that these are important questions. Very smart and insightful people have dedicated their lives to answering them, and over the millennia, various answers have been proposed. Of course, once someone has come up with answers (at least to his or her satisfaction), someone else will say, “But…” and ask the questions again, prompting yet more probing and more or different answers. It may well be an endless quest.
We shape our world by the questions we ask—and by those we fail to ask. If I’m asking who I am or what my purpose is in life, then finding that kind of information is where my attention will be. I’ll be looking for explanations and reasons. I may ignore those things that don’t provide me with that knowledge.
Understanding the “why” of things can be mentally and emotionally satisfying. Self-knowledge and self-understanding can be vitally important. It seems to me, though, that many of the problems we face in our world require more than just explanations. It may be that as we move forward into our future, the truly Big Questions will become “How Might I Help?” and “What Can We Do Together?” or “How Can We Collaborate?” These are the questions that form connections and foster participation. I think of them as “partnering” questions. Answering them enables us to build community and get things done. They open the door to collaboration that can help resolve challenges with grace and skill, creativity and resilience.
These partnering questions are the ones we usually ask in times of crisis. When people are facing the destruction of their homes by fire or flood, which has been happening with distressing frequency this year, they are not going to ask “Who am I?” They are going to ask what they can do to help each other, either to save their homes or to rebuild afterward. It’s when people don’t feel some crisis looming over them that they feel they have the leisure and time to ponder the meaning of it all.
However, if we asked the partnering questions more often and especially in times when we’re not feeling threatened but rather as a normal part of life, then many crises might be averted. If “How might I help in this situation?” became one of our Big Questions, the kind of questions we ask frequently and attentively, then we would be more aware of the needs of the world around us and more attuned to how we might contribute to their resolution. A world shaped by a habitual use of the partnering questions would be a world filled with greater awareness, compassion, and cooperation. It would be a world bent upon finding solutions rather than simply upon winning and proving the other fellow wrong.
Religion, spirituality, philosophy, and science can give us important perspectives and tools to use in healing and blessing our world, but it’s the hospitality and openness of our own hearts and minds that can turn the partnering questions into Big Questions, Important Questions, Questions that focus our attention, time, and energy. They turn our attention outward to each other, creating opportunities to use our explanations, knowledge, and tools in service and collaboration.
If we want to build a better world for ourselves and our children and grandchildren, it’s the Partnering Questions that will help shape it into being.