The child sitting next to me was fascinated with the oblong case beside me on the table that popped open and snapped shut holding the glasses I carried for reading. She had not seen such a contraption before. She played with it for a few minutes, opening and closing it with glee, and then asked if she could play with the glasses too. I took a deep breath and said yes.
Children are curious about the world into which they’ve been born. Children want to understand what things are and how they work. But children are not always gentle and careful with things that big people recognize as costly. Can children be trusted with reading glasses or fine china or expensive jewelry or the family Bible? Do children have a clue what they are asking when they want to handle something fragile or valuable?
Big people ask questions too. Often we ask because we too are infected with curiosity. Frequently we ask to gain information we need. Sometimes we ask a rhetorical question, recognizing what we’d like to understand is simply beyond our human capacity to grasp. It’s our nature to want to know. We humans cut our teeth on exploration. We’re data collectors, puzzle solvers, walking file cabinets, insatiable sponges, unprofessional investigators, ponderers of the profound. So, we ask questions. Yet there are questions for which there are no answers, no solution, no hard data. How long will this last? When will people learn? Will we always have to deal with this? Unless we believe in the power of a crystal ball, we can’t know an undetermined future for ourselves or anyone else. But we ask the questions anyway.
And every now and then we ask questions we’d be better off not asking. Do you think I can do this? we ask a friend as if to provoke a dare. Can I go first? we arrogantly assert hoping others will be impressed. Does this fit me alright? we wonder in the direction of an uncomfortable spouse. Will you do me a favor? we vaguely request knowing that’s a loaded question. Oh, the questions we ask!
Sometimes someone wiser than we will offer a cautionary word when hearing such an audacious question: You don’t know what you’re asking! or Be careful what you ask for! Perhaps we really don’t know what we’re asking for and perhaps we’re brash enough to believe we can handle whatever answer we’ll receive. And perhaps if we listened to our questions a little more carefully, wondering what we hope to gain by asking them, we’d learn a little more about ourselves in the process!
Comentários