Sometimes you have more questions than answers

 

Two summers in college I worked as a camp counselor in the Black Hills at Outlaw Ranch (OR). It was an impressionable time and one in which I was susceptible to bouts of reflection and philosophizing. It was a Christian camp, and I was surrounded by other truth seekers and in really good company. We spent the summer creating community by hiking at sunrise, singing silly songs, worshiping by the fireside, canoeing across the lake, and mucking bathrooms, cabins, and the kitchen. The summer at OR was divided into two distinct types of camps: youth camp for different ages and family camp. Personally, I had never experienced family camp, but we had speakers and musicians and families who came for a week at a time. As counselors, this meant that we adopted families of all ages and led activities for kids in the morning and families in the afternoon. The guest speakers often were thoughtful professor types or authors or thinkers from the greater South Dakota region. The musicians created music connected to their faith journeys and the area. For me, the time with peers, families, thinkers, music, and nature was a perfect input for a bit of wondering and questioning.  

One of the summers I was there, the other counselors and I spent a lot of energy questioning what we knew to be true about our faith and the world. We received a guest speaker one week who shared a life journey in which he lost and found his faith; he was a relentless questioner. I liked this but it was new for me to be exposed to Christians who were willing to ask deliberate, tough, earth-shattering questions about religion, the bible, and Jesus. It felt refreshing and a bit dangerous. Even now, I remember a distinct conversation about reconciling doubt and questions with faith. Our guest shared his view that the best faith arises from uncomfortable questions. In fact, he went further to say that his faith was kept active and alive by questioning and coming back for more conversation. Describing his journey as one in which he always emerged with a pocketful of questions but has determined to keep moving forward, propelled by his faith, he was a good model for how I felt at that time. It is a phrase that I have tucked away for over twenty years and keep circling back to. I do have questions.

That was a long narrative to say that I have found my voice and have begun to write. The pandemic has given me space to question, and I have a lot of questions right now that I would like to explore. After a meandering walk through my neighborhood, I am confronted with the inexplicable end to a paved path before meeting another. Even those who constructed the path must have wondered as they painted a large question mark at the end. Did they run out of asphalt? Was there no plan to continue further than a certain number of meters? Was the plan altered after or before this bike path was built? What was going on here where the sidewalk ends after several kilometers? There are interrupted sidewalks like this all over Brasília. Why? I guess I will have to keep asking and to be comfortable with a pocketful of questions.