The Book Of Questions

These are questions of a different sort - questions about you. They are about your values, your beliefs, and your life; love, money, sex, integrity, generosity, pride, and death are all here.

Here is an enjoyable way to find out more about yourself and others, and to confront ethical dilemmas in a concrete rather than an abstract form.

To respond to these questions, you will need to examine and interpret your past, project yourself in to hypothetical situations, face difficult dilemmas and make painful choices.

These questions can be an avenue for individual growth, a tool for deepening relationships, a quick way to get to know a stranger, or merely a pleasant amusement. Gregory Stock, PhD

Some of these questions will be easy to answer, while others I will not want to write about. I will not want to look at the hurt, the ugliness, the truth. Amusement? I think not. Why am I responding to these questions?

I was collecting daily meditation books to give to a daughter when I remembered thinking I might journal about these questions in this book. Then, I set it aside and never looked at it again.

I thought maybe it may be good to take and look and here we are.

Question One of 200: For a person you loved deeply, would you be willing to move to a distant country knowing there would be little chance of seeing your friends or family again. Gregory Stock, PhD

Only if it were temporary and it isn't according to the question. I am a family gal and most of my friends have become family to me. I couldn't leave them. It was tough enough with retirement, moving just three hours away from family and friends.

With retirement, I know I will see most of my family and friends. Maybe not for as long or as often as I might like but I will see them again. Then because we have six children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren there, we don't see friends we worked with enough.

Question Two of 200: Do you believe in ghosts or evil spirits? Would you be willing to spend a night in a remote house that is supposedly haunted? Gregory Stock, PhD

Over the years I have known people that have seen people who have died. My daughter saw her father with me and then at my mother's house. She told him that we would be okay and that he could go home. There have been others. She was 18 when her father died and she is 49 now.

Friends of mine when traveling stayed in a hotel room with a ghost. They described their experience to me. I have no reason to doubt them. They smudged the room and told the woman that she could go home now.

I would not purposely want to stay in a haunted house. I would go in if asked to. I have done this a few times to smudge someone's place and I have asked spirits to move on.

I have heard of evil spirits but I haven't run into any, other than evil people. When they use bad medicine it effects them, they get old and ugly in no time at all. They are not rewarded for their bad deeds. I believe there are pros and cons to every gift.

Question Three of 200: If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet? Gregory Stock, PhD

In thinking back, I am pretty good with loved ones, except my husband. I said during the last election "I don't know what I am doing with you!" I know that hurt his feelings. It hurt mine too. I love him and don't want to live with anyone else.

The politics aren't all about him. He says I put too much emphasis on politics. He should be entitled to believe as he believes. I had known he was an independent and as long as he was voting independent or democrat I was okay.

I didn't know as an independent how painful it could be for him to be on such opposite sides to me. For him, it is all about abortion. "Killing babies." My position is old white men, government and religion should not be making these decisions. Medical professionals and parents, especially the woman should be the only ones involved in such a difficult decision.

The rest of his stance was from listening to the rhetoric on Fox entertainment news. See my bias? I'm not ready yet. I guess this is the reason for not telling him yet.