Questions are in some ways harder than answers, I think. After we have spent some time considering one word, I will offer some questions at the end of each post for mulling over as we go through our days and our lives. While questions can be harder, they can be quite powerful, and are a better fit for what I am hoping to do here.
What I am hoping to do is to dignify our selves and their various parts with the permission and space to speak. Imagine that we are going to an art museum, and instead of reading the little card posted next to the painting, saying ‘hmm, that’s interesting,’ and walking away from unchanged – imagine that instead, the artist is standing there next to the painting, and he very kindly and humbly and warmly asks us, ‘what do you notice? what do you feel as you look at this painting? why do you think I chose that color? where does your eye go first?’ and on and on.
What I am hoping to do in this blog, and whatever you are hoping to get from it – I am basically saying that I would prefer we do those things together as peers and co-learners. We get to bring all the parts of ourselves into the conversation. We get to be curious. We get to practice charity. And best of all, we get to be gently led by the most kind and masterful question-asker, Jesus. Who better to ask us questions, than the very one who knit us together, who holds all things together, and who formed each and every one of those parts. Just listen to how he might be speaking to you already (all of these questions are from Jesus’ own conversations with people in the book of Mark) – what is your name? what do you want me to do for you? why are you so afraid? why are you weeping? what do you see? how long has this suffering been happening? what is your fight?
What I am hoping to do is to help cultivate our hope – the kind of hope that can come simply from someone walking beside you, one small step after another – the kind of hope that tries its best to risk and hang on in the grappling that is listening for Jesus.
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-Amanda
connectinghope.art 