The Power of a Good Question


Luke 9:18

"Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say I am?"

I had several very fascinating conversations with students and parents/guardians today at school. A commonality in the conversations? Me asking a question based on something they said, perhaps an offhand comment. Unrelated to the purposes of why they came in to see me.

Sort of like opening a door, the question opened up a room of stories. Some of them very sad. It is easy to not ask questions in an attempt to focus on the presenting problems at hand, move on, and keep things clean and tidy. Yet, without taking the time to pursue an opportunity to understand, the connections are not strengthened and the bonds are not bolstered. Communication and Community.  

I have an African-American 70 year-old grandfather who has taken in his grand-daughter. We got in a conversation about racism. He has seen a lot of years and he speaks of a different time when racism was very accepted and very real. As was often the case back in those times, African-Americans were forced to develop alternate venues for musicians. He played a historic role in helping foster entertainment for the African-American community in Baltimore. I never knew that about him. He explained to me what made the Philly Sound...I always have wondered about that. He gave me the inside story, not a textbook explanation.  

As I talked with him, I thought he was a tremendous storehouse of wisdom. Our kids need to hear his stories because they will never understand who they are until they understand who came before. We gave him a Volunteer Form and I am hoping that he turns it in.

Jesus was a great question asker. The best teachers are not necessarily the ones that answer best but instead ask best.     

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shake the Dust: Anis Mojgani

Pslam 90:2 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." I am not real certain where Anis Mojgani comes from belief-wise. Cats like him tend to be synchrestic spiritually rather than Christ-centered. Yet, this poem captures the spirit of Jesus. What this poem also needs is grace....we shake off sin and mortality and take on Christ and immortality. This is for the fat girls This is for the little brothers For the former prom queen And for the milk crate ball players This is for the school yard wimps And the childhood bullies that tormented them Shake the dust. This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them. This is for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns And for the men who have to hold down 3 jobs, Simply to hold up their children. For the nighttime schoolers And for the midnight bike riders trying to fly Shake the dust. For the two year olds who cann...
Read more

Thomas Jefferson & Jesus

Image
I was reminded today, by a friend's post on Facebook, that it is Thomas Jefferson's birthday. So, I had a little party on my own of watching two documentaries on him through Netflix Instant. There is much I admire about Jefferson, there is much I dislike. He is polarizing figure. Besides the owning of slaves, the second most odious character flaw was his castration of the New Testament . See my slice of his slicing. Live by the razor, die by the razor. I did learn a cool new word call Amphiboligism which means ambiguity. The arrogance of Jefferson is astounding as if he had a more accurate vantage point of Jesus after 17 centuries than Jesus's own contemporaries and colleagues. In an empirical and scientific sense, he is at a considerable disadvantage in his postulations. When my wife and I visited Monticello on our Honeymoon, the most memorable moment there --besides my downing a can of Pringles all at once (in my own version of the "Pursuit of Happiness" w...
Read more