Love the questions

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart… Try to love the questions themselves… Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them — and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke

Over the past few years, I have grown fond of the German mystic poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. In his honesty and ability to grapple with difficult truths, doubt, fear, and love, he has given word to many of my own thoughts. Not in the sense that he’s been hiding out in my brain looking under rocks, but I get the feeling we’re kindred spirits. The way he writes in his correspondences (even more in his poetry), he voices some of the longings, hopes, and ideas that have been rattling around in my head. He has inspired me to look deeper at those feelings and explore why I’m wrestling with them and ultimately inspires me to ask harder questions.

Parker Palmer has written about Rilke’s ability to ask these big questions, suggesting that it shouldn’t be done quickly, that “the big questions cannot be answered right away and must be lived into.” One has to dig deep into them and wrestle around with them to see where they take us.

Casey Tygrett spends an entire book, Becoming Curious, on asking questions as a spiritual practice. It isn’t necessarily about finding simple answers to those questions and moving on to the next. We owe our lives more than just a cursory Q&A session. It’s more about living in the tension of constantly asking, seeking, and opening ourselves up to God in a way that can only be done through sincere questioning.

The initial quote comes from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of his letters written in response to a young poet seeking advice. In that correspondence, Rilke shares about what it means to grow in maturity, find one’s own identity and discover true vocation. Just as his letters spoke to that young student, they speak to us today as well. Having the opportunity to eavesdrop on this conversation leads us toward understanding that this type of searching, this deep questioning about one’s own life, is best done in relationship with others.

At Interyear Fellowship, we hope to follow Rilke’s advice to “live the questions now.” It requires us to open up to each other, asking difficult and uncomfortable questions about our purpose in life, our calling, and desire to serve most faithfully in the kingdom of God. Through this vulnerability, we become more fully alive and aware of our place in this world.

To learn more about Rainer Maria Rilke, I suggest listening to Krista Tippet’s inspiring interview with Joanna Macy, exploring his impact on her life while translating his poetry into English. You won’t be disappointed!