Discovering Rilke

Today I had the chance to sit and chat with my friend Amy. We shared thoughts on life and our present circumstances. It was a time that made way to contemplation for me. During our time together Amy shared a passage written by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Amy quotes from Rilke often and they are always such beautiful and poinient words. So today I decided that I must find myself a book of Rilke's work so that I can explore more of his deep reflections. So I went to amazon.com, typed "Rilke" in the search field and began to peruse that wonderful "Look Inside" feature. I found one passage in particular that rang in my ears with so much truth and wisdom. I will share it here...

You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. 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.
Reslove to be always beginning-to be a beginner.

How contrary these words seem to all the things I hear as I make my way through each day? But how welcome too? It can be so overwhelming when life seems filled with so many questions but few answers. These gentle words are an encouragement to me that this is not a fact to be frustrated with but to revel in. Enjoy the questions, the mystery...for the answers will come when the ought. We must not force the answers to come. I think when we do that we rig things so we get the answer that we want and not the one we need. There seems to be this hunger to "arrive" in this world today that we forget to enjoy the journey and the lessons we can learn there. I am just as guilty of this as anyone. But I long to step into Rilke's invitation to "Live the Questions now."

This is just one of the things I am contemplating today. And I am thankful for my friend Amy and that she has introduced me to Rilke. I am looking forward to reading more of his words to see what other truths I will find.