Last week I began teaching a new group of Asian students – those who were fresh off the plane and fighting jet lag to stay awake in class.

From the first day, I have tried to draw them out to actively participate, think critically, and ask responsive questions. Anyone who has worked with Asian students trying to adjust to American academic expectations knows all of this is quite counter-cultural.

At one point on that first day, a young man in the front row mumbled under his breath, “We have questions. But we don’t know how to ask them.”

How ironic: earlier in the same lesson I’d been trying to explain a new word – appropriate. And this student’s barely-verbalized thoughts so appropriately described the feelings of every person in the room.

This made me think about all the questions at every level that my students carry and may want to ask (from the meaning of an unknown word to things that run far deeper)…and even all the questions that average people around me want to ask – or don’t even know they have. Even my own questions: am I asking the right ones, seeing them clearly, speaking them aloud when necessary?

Ultimately, where will the answers to all these questions come from? Who is trustworthy to answer them? And Who is worthy of trust to lean on even when answers are illusive or beyond grasping?

That last question is, perhaps, the one that trumps all others.