By Chris Towles

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart… Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer,” Rainer Maria Rilke

The primary story that impacted my faith and calling deals with listening and presence. While I was an undergraduate in Mississippi, there was a time when I struggled with wondering what I believed. I wondered how much of my beliefs were inherited from parents, pastors and my community context. At that time, I didn’t feel like I could share my wonderings with my friends. Eventually, I remembered Tim Thomas, a former minister of mine, who lived maybe around two hours away. We spoke on the phone and he suggested we meet somewhere between.

We met at a greasy little chicken restaurant with odious orange benches. It wasn’t that Tim gave me advice or shared a Bible verse; it was that he listened to my struggles without condemnation. That is what meant so much to me. It wasn’t that I came out of that conversation with answers, but that there was someone who was willing to sit with my questions.

As a minister at a university, I see one of my ministries as creating space where students can wonder. College students are at a transitional stage in which they are figuring out who they are. They encounter people who think about life differently. They wrestle with how much of their beliefs are their own. Creating that space for wonder has required developing the active listening skills that Tim demonstrated.

A few years ago, a young Muslim student came to me for pastoral care. I was the faculty advisor for the interfaith council and I knew many students from various traditions well, but this was my first pastoral care meeting across traditions with someone I’d never met. I wasn’t exactly sure what pastoral care should look like across traditions, but I leaned heavily on active listening. It turns out that this young woman had similar struggles to those I described back in that chicken restaurant so many years earlier.
She was a biology major, wrestling with belief in God. She didn’t feel like she could talk to an imam or another Muslim for fear of condemnation. She felt the advice she would have received was “pray more” and “read the Quran more.” What she seemed to need at the time was mainly someone who was a non-anxious presence and was comfortable with her struggles and who would not look down on her for wondering.

When I was in college, It took a great deal of trust for me to share my thoughts; I am honored when students share their struggles with me now. I figure one way to honor their struggles and trust is to offer an attentive ear, to be present and to resist the temptation to “solve” their struggles with answers.

PRAY, PRACTICE, PONDER

Sometimes we are tempted to solve our questions or challenges prematurely. But curiosity, presence and wonder are spiritual disciplines, practices that nurture our faith and trust in God. This Advent, create space for wonder for yourself and others. Adopt the posture of a child, allowing yourself to be in awe at the little things, like twinkling lights or moments of connection. Invite yourself to practice being present with “all that is unsolved in your heart” rather than jumping to half-baked answers. Notice how God shows up in this liminal space.