'Questioning Is the Piety of Thought'

A brief tale, as one of my teachers might say with hope, “a pericope”.

35 years ago or more I first encountered, read, and re-read John Fowles’ The Magus. The first, the authentic, as Fowles defined existentialism in his companion book of apothegms “The Aristos”, version; it tells the tale of a modern Orpheus (& Theseus), who receives his existential education on a 1970’s Prospero’s (owned and magically controlled by Mr. Conchis) Island, set in the Greek Aegean.

The novel builds on the metaphors woven into the 72 cards of the deck of Toth, weaving a love story, worth re-reading. It stands out as one of the finest British novels of the 20th century. What I most clearly remember, however, are a still-resounding slap-to-the-face and this quote: “a question is a form of life; an answer is a form of death.”

We, my fellow citizens, we no longer are, nor have we been, questioning. On both sides of the current civic & political debate(s), we have conceded our responsibility to others. Often media enhanced “words that work”. We no longer question. I am told that God is dead and than many of us no longer pray. Perhaps it also could be said that we no longer think. Already some of you have clicked the hyper-text link, with some rude remark already forming. Reconsider, I say, reconsider running away from what you and I conceal about living in this present-Now each and every day. [Yes, there is a little Heidegger in that remark]. 

And, so I keep wondering and asking you to wonder as well. What does it mean to think? And, about what are we supposed to think? And, why is it that, when what we most ought to think about does flash into our consciousness, why is it that, before it fully informs our then-present-moment, it as quickly dissolves, it disappears leaving only a trace, a trace all too often not even perceived – no notice at all - although in those traces there is the Divine revealing some truth we have heretofore concealed from ourselves and or one another. 

Where are those moments, those traces, those gifts from the Divine? In our daily language, in the Word of the Day, there we will find revelations if only we can apprehend it. I’m asking you to try to hold those glimmering traces –often inspired by language -  those a-ha’s, those theophanies in your minds.  Those moments, “spots of time’, are traces of Divinity, those traces of insight into that heretofore concealed truth, which we have concealed from ourselves. We need consciously to stare at those moments, to apprehend and inhale them. Reveling in their details we can find new answers leading to new questions. And, today we need that more than ever.

We are facing a tumultuous next 12 months politically. Already our Wisconsin neighbors have become polarized concerning local and State politics. Let’s keep asking ourselves what it means to think as we live through a period in our history that most calls for us to think. And, let us not walk away from that upon which we are most called to think. In our thinking we are praying to the God within and without. Again, “Questioning is the piety of thought.” At this most Holy of times, let us raise our thoughts, be grateful, be thankful, and open ourselves to new questions.