if you had one question

We had an interesting question come up at a group meeting the other night. "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" Hmmm. When will we have world peace? Why suffering? What is my place in the world? What will be going on in ten years I have to prepare for? Why on earth mosquitoes?

All good questions, I suppose. But I found myself realizing something pretty quickly. I don't want the answers to them. (Except, perhaps, the last one.) Would it do me any good to know the answers to questions that have plagued humankind forever? It would not make anyone listen to me about them. Just because we know the right answers does not mean we will do the right thing. I mean, we all know the answers to what happens when we smoke, or eat to excess, or drive too fast, or tell our spouses, "Of course that doesn't make you look fat." But people are human, and we do these things anyway. And they are pretty insignificant things compared to world peace. Can you imagine how frustrated and depressed a person would be if he or she knew the answers to the tough questions and could not change anything? Plus, I'm pretty sure that, despite an honors degree in theology, I would not really understand the answers.

The future? Do I really want to know? If I had known the future of the past several years, would it have made them any easier? It might have caused me to take my family to a deserted island and hibernate for a decade, but I don't think that would have worked so well. I'm pretty sure that at least the people in our community theater would still find me and still be calling. One day at a time is all you can manage to do sometimes, and to know how long it might last or how bad it might get would be far too overwhelming for the average human being. That's why these things are left to God. And most certainly I do not want to know if my career never takes off and I end up my days in a little hut in Key West lamenting what could have been with no friends but the manatees. I'd just rather not know.

So, I finally came up with an answer. It's not something I want to know but something I want to see. God, if I could ask one question, it would be, "Can I see my sister, please, who is with you?" I would like to see her running around and dancing. I never saw that in the fourteen years I knew her. I want to see my sister who, I am certain, will never get tired in all of eternity of using her legs and never forget the wonder of it. I do believe that might be something that would make me more grateful for each day rather than worried, like the other kinds of answers would. In any case, I'm looking forward to it.

So what would you ask? I'd really like to know.