I have been on my quest for questions since Sept. 24 and have not written one story about my individual experiences yet.
I was getting worried about it, not because I haven’t had some amazing encounters and heard some great stories. It is because the stories are becoming intertwined with one person leading me to the next and all their stories are becoming interconnected.
It is like I am picking up different color patches for a quilt that hasn’t been designed or sewn together yet. I know I am going to make a nice, warm quilt and I know it will fit a king size bed, I just don’t have enough patches yet to get started sewing them all together.
I don’t think this journey is going to be about individual stories. It is going to be how we are all interconnected by our individual searches for spiritual understanding, truths, God. We are all seekers in one way or another. Some seeking answers, some seeking a way to avoid seeking answers and others, like me, still seeking the right questions.
I have decided that the answers are not as important as continuing to ask questions. Once we stop asking questions because we think we have it all figured out, we are pulling up short of finding the ultimate answers, or in my case the ultimate questions. We may have sewn a pretty nice quilt, but is too short and our tootsies will get cold in the winter.
There is always pain involved with any growth. Most people say, “stop the pain” or try to avoid the pain at any cost. They find a comfortable spiritual belief system (or lack of one) and are not willing to keep quest-ioning for fear of running into a wall of pain (or cold toes). Some people think they can prevent pain ( and growth) by trying to settle down somewhere, put down roots and let many of the spiritual questions they still have pass on by. Others, like me am constantly curious about what is around the next corner.
On this trip I have found this to be so. I may find a perfectly good place to stay late some afternoon, but I am always curious to see if there might be something better just around the corner. Every time I push on until the daylight is almost gone I have discovered a better place. This is not to say that pushing my luck (curiosity) hasn’t always yielded a softer bed, or a more beautiful vista. It has resulted a couple of times of into having to stay in a no-tell motel where I feel the compulsion to check for bed bugs and smell the towels before using them. But, in the morning I usually wake up to a sunrise that reveals that the fleabag motel is actually right on the seashore and I meet someone fascinating that I would not have met had had not pushed on and stayed in the nicer, safer place I found earlier.
It is okay to not know. It is not okay to not know because I got cold feet and did not keep looking. It is also okay to not find the answers I was looking for. Because, the answers I find are always better than the ones I thought I’d find.
The only way to find out the right answers is to ask the right questions. I know when the right questions are being asked when those questions are answered by even more questions that lead me further down the path of questing for the truth.
Rob, on the road, picking up patches and putting them in my pockets.
I don’t think this journey is going to be about individual stories. It is going to be how we are all interconnected by our individual searches for spiritual understanding, truths, God. We are all seekers in one way or another. Some seeking answers, some seeking a way to avoid seeking answers and others, like me, still seeking the right questions.
I have decided that the answers are not as important as continuing to ask questions. Once we stop asking questions because we think we have it all figured out, we are pulling up short of finding the ultimate answers, or in my case the ultimate questions. We may have sewn a pretty nice quilt, but is too short and our tootsies will get cold in the winter.
There is always pain involved with any growth. Most people say, “stop the pain” or try to avoid the pain at any cost. They find a comfortable spiritual belief system (or lack of one) and are not willing to keep quest-ioning for fear of running into a wall of pain (or cold toes). Some people think they can prevent pain ( and growth) by trying to settle down somewhere, put down roots and let many of the spiritual questions they still have pass on by. Others, like me am constantly curious about what is around the next corner.
On this trip I have found this to be so. I may find a perfectly good place to stay late some afternoon, but I am always curious to see if there might be something better just around the corner. Every time I push on until the daylight is almost gone I have discovered a better place. This is not to say that pushing my luck (curiosity) hasn’t always yielded a softer bed, or a more beautiful vista. It has resulted a couple of times of into having to stay in a no-tell motel where I feel the compulsion to check for bed bugs and smell the towels before using them. But, in the morning I usually wake up to a sunrise that reveals that the fleabag motel is actually right on the seashore and I meet someone fascinating that I would not have met had had not pushed on and stayed in the nicer, safer place I found earlier.
It is okay to not know. It is not okay to not know because I got cold feet and did not keep looking. It is also okay to not find the answers I was looking for. Because, the answers I find are always better than the ones I thought I’d find.
The only way to find out the right answers is to ask the right questions. I know when the right questions are being asked when those questions are answered by even more questions that lead me further down the path of questing for the truth.
Rob, on the road, picking up patches and putting them in my pockets.
10-12-10
1 comment:
I am going to live vicariously through you Patch! Love to keep following your incredible adventure....glad you are happy as a clam too! Hugs and Love
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