The poet Rilke, in his book Letters to a Young Poet, is famously quoted: “I beg you . . . to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked doors or books written in a very foreign language.” 

This quote has followed me over the years, showing up at times when I least expect it and often when I am answer-hunting the most.  When it appears I am always infuriated: “What, again?”

Today, a little interior snicker comes with it:  “Yep, again,” and I know it’s time for me to get out of the way, to let go and trust. 

A spirituality of questioning is a tough pill to swallow. 

I want answers.  I want the answer.  Now!

I want to know how something is going to turn out.  I want to know the reason a thing happened. 

I want to know what is next, around the corner, or next week, month, year.

I want a guarantee that “all shall be well.” I want, I want, I want.

To learn to be patient and receive the answer as it comes is not the way of the world. 

We lean toward instant gratification. 

We are impatient. We do not like to wait for stop lights, much less answers to deep and important questions. 

“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now,” said Rilke, “because you would not be able to live them, and the point is, to live everything, live the questions now.” 

Living the questions means I must accept that I do not need to know the answers right here, right now.  I may not even have all of the information needed to act on an answer if I got one.

I must remember that the answer comes as I live within the seeking, searching, and questioning.  The answers are in the journey itself. 

I trust that “all shall be well,” as Julian of Norwich says. I let go of my need for control, for guarantees, and become willing to put one foot in front of the other, to do the footwork and leave the end results up to God. 

Again from Rilke: “Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers . . .” 

Learning to live into the answers is living in the mystery – trusting, content, and satisfied that I am where I am supposed to be at this moment in time. 

This is living in the eternal present, in the here and now.

This is living with an open heart and mind.

This is living with no preconceived answers in my head.

This is living in the eternal silence where God resides, where I am still and quiet, listening with the “ear of my heart,” certain that answers will be revealed in God’s time.

by Carla Pineda, a laywoman in the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas with a special interest in women’s spirituality and the reading and writing life. She attends St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio.

This article is from Reflections magazine, spring/summer 2010 issue, published by The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas. All rights reserved. Read the entire issue at http://www.dwtx.org/index.php/prayer/Reflections_Online