Questions That Lead Us Home

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek; and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

Down through the ages and across the variety of spiritual traditions, perennial questions have called out from the heart and soul of every deep and sincere spiritual seeker. While we tend to believe that true answers will lead us along the path of wisdom, we often overlook the fact that profound answers are consequence of evocative inquiry. As Francis Bacon asserted, a prudent question is one half of wisdom.

For the next six Sundays, we will focus on questions that evoke our deepest truths about ourselves, our purpose in this life, and the choices that make up our days. Our inquiry will bypass the surface mind, with its expedient explanations that serve only to manage the surface conditions of life. Our questioning will take us into the deeper reaches of our hearts and souls and evoke our deepest understanding of what constitutes meaningful, conscious, faithful living.

We will welcome and seek to amplify the sacred whispering in our hearts that offers its infinite wisdom and love. We will explore these questions to find ways of experiencing greater clarity, peace, and spiritual understanding in our daily lives. We will take this journey so that our lives are as much an expression of our true selves and as on-course as possible in the crosswinds of our human dramas.

Perhaps the most important question of our spiritual quest is Who Am I, for it is our sense of self that most profoundly impacts our connections and experiences in this life. On the surface we see ourselves as flesh and bone men or women with identities defined by race, culture, family, education, careers and material possessions. As many of us have experienced, when we identify ourselves with these external facets of ourselves, our identities and self esteem are highly vulnerable when great change strips these definitions from our lives. Yet such losses can actually be a boon on our spiritual quest because we are then forced to seek and encounter our deeper essence, the you and I that is not altered by the winds of change.