You can't Google God

Karen Aalto, Facilitator for 2023-24, Diocese of Massachusetts

Is it possible to love a question when you do not have the answer? I’m sure I’m not alone here when I say that I prefer answers over questions.

I’ve built my adult life on being a person who knows a lot of things. For example, I can tell you what my family’s schedule is on any given day of the week. I know that my 15-year-old son will soon need another pair of soccer cleats, because I noticed the other day that his pajama bottoms are getting too small – again! – and his feet always grow another size after he has a growth spurt. At work, I know how to troubleshoot our church’s printer, livestream computer, and our coffee percolator. I know that we buy a new paschal candle on odd-numbered years (budget savings, of course), that our safe in the sacristy often won’t unlock easily in the cold months, and that our parishioners overwhelmingly prefer a medium-blend coffee to a dark roast.

I’m also the first person to pull out my phone for a Google search when I am presented with a question to which I do not have the answer. That’s the beauty of the internet; we have knowledge at our fingertips – within moments we can have answers to every question.

Not Knowing, then, can be really uncomfortable. Especially when it relates to our lives, vocations, and our ministries. The questions that come from this unknowing are deep, burning, and seem to come from the very depths of our bones. What is our purpose? Why are we here? What are we meant to do with the time we have in this incarnation on this earth? These questions are always present; nagging at us.

There is no limit to what we can do to distract ourselves, either. We can lose ourselves in tasks and schedules and to do lists and social media scrolling and Netflix binges and newsfeeds and internet games and glasses of wine and staying busy and doing, doing, doing. When we do take a moment to rest, when the questions come up again, we try and think our way around it. We long for an answer, for a clear vision of what God has in store for us.

The problem, though, is this: You can’t Google God.

God works in and through us in quiet ways. In whispers, hunches, impulses... and yes, questions. It’s only through the process of creating an intentional space for silence that these questions can deepen and lengthen and perhaps begin to open up to us. It requires stillness and patience, which is uncomfortable. It’s so much easier to stay busy in our lives than it is to slow down.

For the past year and a half, I’ve participated in Loving the Questions –first as a participant, and now as a small group facilitator. Every few weeks, we gather, sit in silence together, and reflect on the questions we feel in our hearts. In that stillness, we ask ourselves: God, what is your prayer for me? For us? What do I need to surrender to you in order to join this prayer? Is there something about this prayer that I should name out loud?

In our meetings, we intentionally keep silence for each other, which, yes, in the beginning, feels awkward. But over the course of our gatherings, leaning into this silence, together we become aware of the places where God lives.

I continue to be amazed and fascinated by the way the Holy Spirit shows up in every one of our meetings (and through Zoom, of all places!). I’ve experienced times where we’ve all underlined the same phrase in one of our readings, where in the midst of our meeting someone references the closing prayer without knowing it ahead of time, where an image or spoken response to someone’s sharing makes clear something they hadn’t known until that very moment. We help each other understand God’s call.

This is why Loving the Questions has become an integral part of my own personal discernment. There are so few places in our lives – our church services included! – where we can carve out a space for sitting in silence and listening to God. God’s call is there for every one of us; not just those who may be discerning a vocation to Holy Orders. God calls us all to live fully into our purpose.

There are questions for all of us to answer, if only we’d spend more time in the quiet together, listening.

So yes, it is possible to love the questions, even when you do not yet have answers. And it has been my profound honor to help create a space for others to do the same within Loving the Questions. ♦