The older I get, the more I suspect the answers are the least important part.
Answers have a short shelf life.
Questions endure.
An answer solves a problem for a moment. A good question forces every generation to confront the problem again.
The men we remember are rarely those who provided final answers. They are the men who asked questions so powerful that others continued wrestling with them long after they were gone.
A teacher's lesson may be forgotten.
A teacher's question may shape a life.
A leader's decision may be overturned.
A leader's question may guide an institution for decades.
A Mason's title will be forgotten.
The questions he leaves behind may become his true legacy.
How should a man live?
What does honor require?
What is worth building?
When is service complete?
How do we leave something better than we found it?
These questions have survived generations because they cannot be permanently answered. Each generation must answer them again for itself.
Perhaps that is why wisdom often sounds less like certainty and more like curiosity.
The wisest men I have known did not leave behind a collection of answers.
They left behind better questions.
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