Living in the question . . .

Well here goes - its called biting the bullet and getting on with it.  Kick aside all the obstacles, overcome the fear and write my first blog.  I have called this blog and my blog name 'Living in the question . . .' because that is what I try to do and it forms me as a person.  It stems from a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke that has always spoken to me - I even used it as part of a prayer in the first service I ever wrote. 

. . . 'I want to beg you, as much as I can . . . to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves. . . . Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.'  RAINER MARIA RILKE Letters to a Young Poet

Well answers have never been my strong point - it has always seemed to me that one person's answer is in fact another person's question.  I never profess to have any answers and in my ministry I aim to encourage people to question, question and question. . . . . . .
I am not just talking about religion but really about every aspect of life.  If we are to live a life with any integrity then surely we must accept nothing as it is given but rather question everything, everything that we think, that we feel and that we do ... especially what we do ... and that is the challenge.  It is certainly what challenges me to go on seeking and learning and even, dare I say it, preaching.

Ralph N Helverson, an American Unitarian Universalist, says in the introduction to his book LIVING THE QUESTIONS: 
'To live in the questions is to know that though we claim to sit on the highest throne of heaven's revelations, we are really sitting on our own behind.  We speak from a very human point of view, and the seeking approach is to ask questions.'

So for me this blog will be the space for me to put some of my questions into words and explore how I live them now . . .