“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” – Zora Neale Hurston
2017 showed herself to be a year of questions for me. Damnit, I thought. 2016 was a year of answers and I LOVE the answer years. And if you didn’t know, I’m obsessed with learning about Love. Six days into 2017, I layed down with life coach Martha Beck’s words ringing in my ears, “How the hell did I get here? And what the hell do I do now?”
The questions we ask ourselves matter, because research shows that we are happiest when pursuing meaningful lives.
I went to Together Live and saw Glennon Doyle interview Krista Tippett, my ultimate idol on discovering meaning, and Krista dropped straight wisdom about Love:
“I want love to be something that we practice in public, an unexpected opening to take love seriously, because we have started to take hate seriously. Love has nothing to do with how you feel. It’s about actions and presence.”
I knew I had to have her book, Becoming Wise. As I listened, I hungered for her words in my head and heart.
I’m an inpatient, rebellious book reader and gunned for the chapter I really wanted- Love. Never mind you that it’s in the middle of the book. I hunched over, voraciously underlining and starring the words. Krista Tippett, you divine being, TELL ME ALL THE SECRETS that came from your conversations with beautiful souls.
I started reading and guess what? There was no answer to be found. No cookie cutter recipe with guaranteed love results. I was looking for If you do this and this, then VOILA, LOVE. Damnit.
Guess what was in there instead? QUESTIONS. Damnit again.
I couldn’t put the book down. I had a plan. I was determined to glean an answer. Questions, just please please please teach me about love.
Once I embraced the lack of prescription that was this book, there was so much clarity. So much scribbling, I want that. I circled words that shimmered and nourished.
More questions arose from what was already in her pages and I wrote them in my morning journal. They revealed my heart and soul back to me. In case you have been seeking questions, I highly recommend getting present with the ones below. They come from powerful conversations in the pages of Becoming Wise.
What is love? Answer the question through the story of your life. (Krista Tippett)
Where is beloved community? (john powell)
Where are you aware of connection? Where are you living connection? Where are you expressing connection? (john powell)
How are you living “as if”? How are you embodying loving community? (John Lewis)
How are you sidling up to difference? (Anthony Appiah)
Sometimes love, in public as in private, means stepping back. In what ways are you willing to step back in love to hear? (Krista Tippett)
There was much on companionship, being together without words, and in this climate, I wanted to see what my heart had to say:
How do we live together when the problem isn’t solved? What does that look like? Hint: Imagine so that we can live into it.
In what ways is your heart being educated by walking with the suffering person who has come into your life and who you have not rejected? (Xavier Le Pichon)
Who and what are educating your heart? (Krista Tippett)
What keeps feeling like an “I” but is actually a “we”? (john powell)
How do we make belonging infectious? (Krista Tippett)
To the deep trust in the questions and the answers that are arising in you,
Jess
* Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash
