Asking the Beautiful Question

SOMETIMES

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
 
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
 
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
 
you come
to a place
whose only task
 
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
 
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
 
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
 
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
 
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
 
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
 
questions
that have no right
to go away.

Whyte, David (2007-01-01). River Flow: New & Selected Poems (pp. 52-53). Many Rivers Press. Kindle Edition. 

Once you have been brave enough to stop the old, tired conversations you’ve been having, a marvelous, threatening silence opens up. It’s marvelous because this silence is the place where the tiny requests come to us- the questions that can lead to anywhere. Anywhere. There’s a sense of abundance in this that feels incredible and vital after feeling so cramped and stuck.

But this silence is threatening because underneath these tiny requests are beautiful questions that can, as Whyte puts it, make or unmake a life. And the deepest part of you knows that these beautiful questions have no right to go away. So, you can put them out of your mind for a time, but you know that once you start pulling at the thread, a certain amount of unraveling is inevitable.

For Whyte these beautiful questions can be vast- questions like “Can I live a courageous life?” Courage for David doesn’t mean brave heroics but really being present and showing up in the life you are leading. This requires courage because being present means you can be touched. And being able to be touched means you can be hurt. Living a courageous life means showing up honestly, knowing we can, and no doubt will, be hurt many, many times. How many opportunities do we miss because we’re afraid we might not succeed or will be laughed at for trying?

But sometimes the beautiful question is as small as asking whether we know how to have a real conversation. David tells a story of trying to be a father to his teenage daughter, Charlotte. At one point they get crosswise with one another, like you do, and he realized he wasn’t having a real conversation with her. He was talking at her and not really being vulnerable in anyway she could appreciate. So, he took ten minutes to breathe, put the kettle on, and then invited her to a real conversation over tea. He asked her: “Tell me one thing you’d like me to stop doing as a father, and tell me one thing you’d like for me to start.” And immediately, her eyes widened, and they were suddenly having a real conversation.

And sometimes, when leaders ask beautiful questions entire communities can be changed for the better. I live in a small suburb outside of Portland, Oregon called Tualatin. (Pronounced Tu-WAH-luh-tin.) While parts of Tualatin are thriving, people experiencing poverty and food insecurity have been growing at alarming rates. In a ten year period residents of Tualatin went from 1 in 16 people living below the poverty line to 1 in 8. Moreover, while churches like the one I serve were instrumental in establishing our local food pantry, food pantries are notorious for carrying inexpensive, processed foods that contribute to increasing rates of obesity. Further, helping people, while a good thing, can create a sense of dependence that isn’t positive at all. As the iron law in community organizing goes: never do for another what they can do for themselves.

Aware of all of this, one of our residents, Chad Darby, wanted to do something in our community to help, but he didn’t want to just participate in the same old conversation. Chad started asking himself a beautiful question: is there a way to feed hungry people healthy food and involve the whole community in the process? Thus, Chad started Neighbors Nourishing Community (NNC). NNC provided volunteer local gardeners with seeds and instructions in exchange for 20% of their produce for use in the food pantry. Chad involved local homeowners, small businesses, and he even negotiated with the city to designate land on a city park where low income families now grow food. In the past year 27 home gardeners and 14 low income gardeners produced over 2,000 pounds of fresh, organic vegetables for the Tualatin food pantry.

And this all happened because one local community member started asking a beautiful question about how to help his neighbors in an innovative way. Of all the questions we can be asking, that is certainly one with no right to go away.

What is the beautiful question, the question that can make or unmake a life, that is waiting for you?