The Right Questions

For years, in my desk drawer, I kept a file folder filled with pages torn out of magazines and newspaper articles I read or which someone dropped off for me to read. Scraps of paper each with some tidbit of wisdom I did not want to forget or an idea which deserved more time to think about than I had when I added it to the file. And, the front and back of the manila file filled as well. Covered with quotes from something I was reading or something I had heard. My writing them down helped me file them away not only in my desk drawer, but also somewhere within the recesses of my mind where they would occasionally push their way outward to my remembering which is what happened on my walk today.

One of the quotes on that file folder is this:
“If they get you asking the wrong questions they don’t have to worry about the answers.”
I don’t know where I read it.
I think it was written or said by Saul Alinsky, but I am not sure.
I only scribbled down the quote and nothing more.
But, given where we are
In the midst of a pandemic
I began thinking about what the “right questions” might be that we should be asking.
Questions beyond…
Should we open up?
Or, when and how should we open up?
Or, when will this be over?
Or, when will we get back to normal?
Questions like…
What is the balance between rights and responsibility?
How will we define “community?”
And, how will we support and sustain that “community” in the new normal which will emerge?
How do we value tomorrow the jobs and service which we rely on so heavily today?

I don’t know the answers.
But these feel like the “right: questions.
Ones we should begin thinking and talking about.
Today.