"A sense of Mystery can take us beyond disappointment and judgment to a place of expectancy. It opens in us an attitude of listening and respect. If everyone has in them the dimension of the unknown, possibility is present at all times . . . Knowing this enables us to listen to life from the place in us that is Mystery also. Mystery requires that we relinquish an endless search for answers and become willing to not understand . . . Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next question. After all these years, I have begun to wonder if the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company."
RACHEL NAOMI REMEN, M.D. My Grandfather's Blessings
(Thanks go to am for this quote)
this is beautiful robert - i look forward to following along on this internal pilgrimage.
ReplyDeleteOh yes. That last sentence says how I feel about this new blog, your other blog, and those of others where we live the questions now (in Rilke's words, of course) together.
ReplyDeleteAgain, it would be well to carve these words above the threshold to my home. To the extent that hope and optimism reside in my soul, it is because of the unknown rather than the known, the mystery rather than the answers that have arrived and vanished through the years. And I absolutely agree with the last sentence of the quote from Remen: If there is any secret to living well, it "is not in having all these answers but in pursuing the unanswerable questions in good company." Let me add that there is no better company than you, my friend, with whom to pursue these unanswerable questions.
ReplyDeletePursuing unanswerable questions in good company. A change of tense and it becomes a worthy mission statement.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this Robert. I'm looking forward to following you on this journey too. Especially interested in the links between external and internal journey.
ReplyDeleteAndy
Somehow this brought to my mind the Keatsian notion of " Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason". (from letter to George and Thomas on 21st December, 1817).
ReplyDeleteI also loved Rebecca Solnit's idea of language as a road unfolding in time...
Thank you,Robert, for all your valuable insights.
I can think of no better start to the journey promised by your new blog than this, and I, for one, am eager to walk out with you into the unknown.
ReplyDeleteThanks, everyone, for expressing such enthusiasm about this new project!
ReplyDeleteThis is a brilliant quote. I recently visited a friend I hadn't seen in a year or two and we (both of us notorious for our quiet natures) both talked until we lost our voices. And that is just what we were doing, "pursuing unanswerable questions in good company."
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