Good Questions (can change the world!)

The Quakers are small in number.  There are but a few hundred thousand of them in the United States.  Worshiping in silence goes a long way toward maintaining their low profile in the public eye. 

Early in their history, the Quakers chose to ask questions instead of making grand pronouncements.  They called them “queries.”  Their regional assemblies would carefully refine these queries and pose them to the membership of their local Meeting Houses.  They would keep asking themselves these queries until, by consensus, they determined that it was time to ask different questions.  The queries addressed topics of personal spiritual practice, the conduct of silent Meetings, and social and moral issues.  The queries lit a fire in the consciences of individual Quakers and of the Society of Friends as a whole. 
 
What would happen if other faithful people began to ask questions instead of arguing with answers they don’t like?  What would happen if we followed St. Paul’s advice and stopped returning evil for evil?  What would happen if we asked serious questions instead of behaving defensively in response to religious or political bombast? 
 
I believe that asking good questions can change the world.  In my role as a university chaplain, I've led many field trips and events that put students in contact with policy makers and officials.  Their sincere, intelligent questions often embarrassed people in power, challenging them to rise to a new level of accountability.  When students ask questions, instead of making proclamations, people in positions of power take them seriously, and are sometimes disturbed enough by the questions to seek new perspectives.  I took a group of USC students to meet the notorious Joe Arpaio, who at the time was the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona.  He claimed to be the toughest cop in America, threatening undocumented immigrants, running a jail with a tent compound outdoors in 120 degree heat, issuing pink underwear to prisoners, and feeding them green bologna for lunch.  My students very respectfully asked him questions, and he, seemingly flattered by the attention he was getting, bloviated for hours.  My students didn't let up.  They politely asked harder and harder questions - ones that flustered him.  Yet their demeanor gave him no opening to react negatively.  Who knows what impact my students had on him?  I told them that if anybody could have opened his heart and mind, it would have been them. 

I've been asked some questions that changed my life.  When my wife and I were going through a rocky patch in our marriage years ago, our therapist asked me this question:  "So Jim, who are your role models?"  I quickly answered with a list of my heroes, including John Woolman (a Quaker), Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.  "And what were their marriages like?" the therapist asked, staring me straight in the eye.  I was busted.  Noble as my role models were in the public sphere, not a one of them was an exemplary husband.  Our therapist didn't give me a prescription of how to change.  But his question got through to me, and set me on a new path of healing in my relationship with my wife.

I have used the "motivational interviewing" method in helping people make behavior changes.  It is a way of asking a series of questions that validate the person as a choice-maker, even if their choices look problematic.  The interviewer starts with this kind of question:  "What are the benefits to you of using cocaine?" And after respectfully listening to the answer, asks:  "And what are the downsides?"  The structure of the questions is intended to create uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that moves the person to exercise his or her choice-making power to resolve. 

How can we use the same approach to ask questions in the realm of public policy?  What questions could change the world for the better?  Which ones transform bitter division into shared inquiry with those who take the “other side” on important issues?  What kinds of questions invite the calmest, most constructive conversations?

 

Thanks to "musings" reader Ric Shafer for passing this along to me:

  QUERIES TOWARD A MORE PEACEFUL LIFE
from the American Friends Service Committee


A pillar of the Quaker faith, a query is an invitation to examine one's deepest values, and to consider how to live one's faith in the world.  Queries have no right or wrong answers, but they can open one's heart to new insights when considered in quiet contemplation. 

Here are 12 queries, perhaps one for each of the coming months.  Or, you might just choose to reflect on one of these that speaks to you. 

• How can I nurture the seeds of peace within myself, my community, and the world? 

• How can I increase my understanding of nonviolence and use it in all my interactions? 

• How do I help others—colleagues, program participants, supporters—recognize and use their gifts? 

• In what ways do I work to change society so that everyone has equal opportunities? 

• How can I speak up and take action in a loving way when I see and hear injustices? 

• How well do I bring my inner life and outer life into wholeness? 

• How can I listen with an open mind to others' experiences? 

• How do I help ensure a safe space for diverse voices and opinions in the communities where I participate and serve? 

• How can I work to settle disputes with love and sensitivity for all involved?

• How can I be more thoughtful about what I need and what I acquire? 

• Do I know when to say no to work I cannot adequately attend to? 

• In what ways do my interactions with other people reflect my beliefs and values?