January 30-A, 2023

View From Grandfather Mountain 07 10/13/2011 Oil Paint Rendered — Grandfather Mountain State Park, Banner Elk, North Carolina
If we keep asking the same questions,
we will keep getting the same answers.

Pay attention to the questions you ask,
noting how many remain the same over time.

Things are the way they are
because we are only allowed to ask
the same questions.

Every institution/structure limits the questions
that can be asked about the institution/structure. 

Start by asking what cannot be asked.
"What questions are not permitted?"
"What questions make people uncomfortable here?"

Follow that up with 
"What assumptions/presumptions 
do these questions expose,
maintain,
keep in place?"

We aren't going to begin to ask better questions
until we begin to ask different questions.

"Who says so?"
and "How do they know?"
Are two of my faves.

Follow-up questions are crucial.

The two rules for question asking are:
Ask all of the questions that beg to be asked.
Say all of the things that cry out to be said
(Saying those things will initiate additional questions,
and the two rules together will take you
straight to the bottom of what's what).

–0–

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters and five granddaughters within about twenty minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

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