Me: God, Why?
God: No, I ask the questions…
Me: Ok, what are your questions?
God: Don’t ask.
- Steve Shoemaker, from Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, Dec. 5, 2015
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Tag Archives: questions
The Donkey’s Questions
Matthew’s Gospel has two asses (donkeys), not one, in its Palm Sunday narrative. “They brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he sat thereon.” Steve Shoemaker’s versed ponders the scene from the standpoint of the colt.
Verse – The Donkey’s Questions on Palm Sunday,
according to St. Matthew
He searched for just the right stick…
but then he never hit me? Why
go to all that trouble? Pick
the answer: 1. that he would try
directing the singing? 2.
to lean on when the day was through?
Why does he ride on my mom
while I’m just trotting alongside?
What does “Halleluja” mean?
Who’ll pick up clothes after the ride?
Now he shifts and rides on me–
he breaks the stick and makes a “T.”
His face looks like he’s had a loss…
Is he thinking of that cross?
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL,
What QUESTIONS did you ask?
“When I would come home from grade school, my parents would NOT ask, ‘What did you learn at school today?’” reports brilliant scientist Ellis Cowling, North Carolina State University Professor and later Research VP at the University of North Carolina.
“My parents would ask me, ‘What good questions did YOU ask today in school?’”
Thanks to Steve for sharing this memory from his friend at NCSU.
It occurs to me that the question to Ellis is a good one for adults, as well for children. What good questions are you asking today?
A critical mind may not be the key to bliss, but it is the only antidote to answers that make no sense. “The unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates). Which also means, I suppose, that “the examined life IS worth living.”
After two weeks of partisan convention answers without questions, “What good questions are YOU asking?”
Share them here, if you like. NO platitudes, please. No answers. Just good questions.
Thanks,
Gordon
Wiping the President’s Tears
President Bush and ordinary citizen
Former President George W. Bush was right there – standing on the corner on Main Street in Rapid City, South Dakota. Most people were ignoring him. He looked lonely standing there all by himself. So I walked over to strike up a conversation.It was the kind of conversation I’ve always wanted to have with George – one where he doesn’t get to talk back or cut me off. I asked questions and made my points. My questions were the same as in the story of the President’s visit to an elementary school. The story goes like this.
The President talks to the children and then opens the floor to questions.
One little boy puts up his hand and George asks him what his name is.
“Billy.”
“And what is your question, Billy?”
“I have three questions. First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the U.N.? Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes? And third, whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?”
Just then the bell rings for recess. George assures the kiddies that they will continue after recess.
When they resume, George says, “OK, where were we? Oh! That’s right! –
Question time. So who has a question?”Another little boy puts up his hand. George points him out and asks him what his name is.
“Steve.”
“And what is your question, Steve?”
“I have five questions. First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the U.N.? Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes? Third, whatever happened to Osama bin Laden? Fourth, why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early? And Fifth, what the hell happened to Billy?”
All these years later, standing on the corner of Main Street with George W., I was prepared to ask Billy’s original three questions and a few others. I wanted to ask why his Party was blaming President Obama for what happened under his administration.
I never got to ask. as soon as I asked the question about Iraq, something strange happened.
I thought I saw a tear falling from his eye.
I pulled out a handkerchief and reached up to dry his tears. Only then did I realize: I hadn’t been talking with W. I’d been talking with his father, President George Herbert Walker Bush.
W is standing blocks away at the corner of 5th and St. Joseph, a thoughtful consideration for the older Bush, I thought, by the City Fathers of Rapid City. Here’s George, just like he was after declaring victory in the Iraq War: “Look at me, Dad, I finished the job for you!”
- George W: “Thumbs up, Dad!”
Mission Accomplished
A Verse for Children
A series of exchanges on Via Lucis about the history of human cruelty led me to publish this children’s prayer for sanity. There are supposed to be line breaks, but they keep disappearing.
Dear God,
Please teach me how to pray.
We have more questions every day.
Our minds and fingers seem to find
and make a mess (we leave behind)
for other’s hands to fix and clean.
(Sometimes we’re even mean.)
Often we feel that we’re so small
that we don’t matter much at all.
And yet we know you made us right
and even called us “good” in spite
of all we do. So help us know,
dear God, how we should grow.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, March 27, 2012
Steve’s program “Keepin’ the Faith” can be heard anytime @ www.will.illinois.edu/keepinthefaith, including archive programs.
Views from the Edge 