When I hold up in my mind’s eye and consider my circle of people whom I cherish, when I see their faces before me as I write, I smile and recall the unique sounds of each of their voices, their particular habits and how they know and experience me as their friend. I do not think in terms of them having “qualities,” but rather, as having distinctions that make them who they are. Some love me more than others and vice versa. Some challenge me and give me hell when I need it, and still others say everything that needs saying without using a word.

To say that “every” crisis is also an opportunity, is a colossal stretch to put it mildly. Having worked with children and teens for decades, with a regular component of my work being crisis intervention, working on sudden death response teams, and within ministry settings today providing pastoral care to people in need, I can say that of course, living through and recovering to a better place following a crisis can make us stronger. I have also witnessed with joy and wonder those times when people eventually triumphed over tragedy. But not always and certainly not in “every” crisis. Some crises also destroy totally what once was, leave people maimed and shattered in body and heart and take away lives forever. There is no spinning these kinds of crises to a “hoped for” rosy outcome in order to complete a Daily Question.

Note: Now that the Daily questions are being “keyed” to the Word for the Day, I am experimenting with responding to the Daily Question before reading the Word for the Day so that my responses reflect my thoughts and not those by the author of the Word for the Day. When I am done, I will enjoy reading the Word for the Day. (Thanks for the idea, Malag!)

“Who in my life dances to the beat of my drum?” seems like a strange question to me. My initial response was immediate. Hopefully, no one dances to the beat of my drum. I am not interested in anyone dancing to the beat of my drum. To do so would seem to indicate conceit or being obsessed with self-centeredness. I will enjoy reading how others respond as I wonder if there is another way of considering this question.

Well…! After I posted the above I went and read the Word for the Day. I suggest that today’s Daily Question misses entirely the meaning that the Word for the Day’s author was making. One of the reasons that people the world over enjoy quotes that inspire and motivate us is because they are whole and complete as stated. They cannot be altered or added on to. We take them in as they are for however they land on our psyche. There may have been a question somewhere within the author’s quote, but it cannot be written. It can only be realistically received and answered within the heart and mind of the reader.

Thank you, Gratefulness. This was an enjoyable exercise for me! Truly.

Hello Serafina, I have enjoyed the variety of viewpoints on this, actually. But for now, I’m taking Malag’s suggestion of answering the Daily Question before I read the Word for the Day so that my response is truly my own and not flavored by the angle, bent or philosophy of the Word of the Day’s author. (And I say that as one who really appreciates all of the daily Words of the Day. (In fact, since 2015, I have kept hundreds of the Word for the Day, each categorized by genre, as I enjoy collecting quotes and such which I use elsewhere or send to other people.) But it’s no big deal, either. I thought I would do this for a week or so and decide whether or not to continue with what I’m calling “Malag’s Method!”.

Even still, as I have expressed to a couple of readers already, In my view the Daily question’s writer is, in effect, editorializing, as soon as it shapes the Daily Question directly from the day’s Word for the day. But for myself, I can live with that. And as one reader said to me, just go ahead and reply to the question any way you want! My “stop” on that approach is that I also enjoy the challenge of the question itself and try to answer it, for the most part, literally. Just the way I process, I guess!

One side note that may explain my own idiosyncrasy, if you will, is that I save every every Daily Question and my response each day in a Word file, month by month, and have done so since 2015. Over time it becomes like a journal and reflects in part what was going on in my life on a given day and month throughout the year. Perhaps that explains my investment in this process, and perhaps something else I’ll leave to others to access! .

You’re very kind, Mica. My wife, who is correct, sometimes tells me I take things too literally! Generally, I do try to respond to each days question from the premise in which it was given. That said, I do sometimes alter or change completely how I interpret the daily question and answer it however I wish. And once in a while a daily question will get me thinking about something entirely different and I respond from that angle also. But all in all I like the challenge of trying the best I can to answer a question as it is given and probably that’s why I am balking at how they seem to be constructing questions lately. Your response to me makes me smile and has me thinking of a very good friend of mine who would say to me right now, “Kevin, shut up and just answer the #%!# question!”

Thanks for your view on this, Katrina, and I am sure others might feel the way you do. My struggle on this approach to crafting Daily Questions is this: I enjoy greatly the daily “Words for the Day”, as I have for many years now. But I do so knowing that the daily quotes and phrases are philosophic in nature, and reflect the author’s ideology, religion, or world view, which is fine and I value reading them. The Word of the Day are also phrases usually gleaned from longer tracts and statements, which means that we run the risk of interpreting them out of context from their original and intended meaning. And if we’re just reading them as is, and take away whatever we can from them, that’s perfectly fine and and in my view beneficial. But when we craft a particular question using part of a philosophic phrase or statement, I argue that an opinion is being advanced in how the question is being constructed, which immediately plays a role in how we, the readers, respond. Crafting an occasional Daily Question from the Word of the Day is fine with me, but less so if it is done on a regular basis. All said, it is just an opinion I hold, and not as they say, a “hill worth dying on.”