An interesting thing happened to me recently. I spoke in a Sunday worship for a Quaker gang I know quite well. It was a fun thing for me to do, because so many of them are friends. Their congregation is going through some significant period of transition, on top of the craziness of our own time in a pandemic and other public issues. I am sure members of that congregation are feeling like, “enough already!” Some days I feel like that, too. And then I recognize that so many more folks have struggles I don’t. I try to be grateful.
You probably are wondering, so where’s the story here? At one level, that is the story---and it is not much of a story. I did what I have done countless times: spoke to a group in a way they appreciated, but it was not astoundingly profound. Of course, I tried to share with them a message that I thought might be appropriate to them at this time in their transition. I used the story of the Israelites coming out of Egypt and being caught in the wilderness. They are in their own wilderness time now as a congregation.
The temptation is wanting to go back. Indeed, many of them did want Moses to take them back---back to slavery and all that means. We all know that is a choice for death. That is a choice with no real possibilities. There is no future, no promise and, ultimately, no real life. It is devoid of meaning and purpose. All the things that matter to being human and having a rich life are not found in our past. It is not found in the wilderness.
The wilderness is a place of discovery, if we are open and willing to look and learn. This is where my boring story gets interesting. The week after I spoke, another guest speaker shared her message. The younger woman who followed up on what I had said developed it in a nice way. I won’t repeat here what she said, but she did use one quotation that I very much like. And it is something I had forgotten.
She cited the work done at Harvard Negotiating Project, which has been affiliated with the Law School there since 1979. They have written some interesting stuff, but one quotation she used, I would like to borrow to develop some thoughts here. They have come up with a useful idea in the phrase, “from certainty to curiosity.” Specifically, they write with “attention and practice we can begin to think like mediators and shift our orientation from certainty to curiosity, from debate to exploration, from simplicity to complexity, and from either/or to ‘and.’”
I very much like that phrase “from certainty to curiosity.” Whether or not it is obvious, I would like to get groups and people to value curiosity more than they do. I am sure almost all of us had a high degree of curiosity when we were kids. That is the source of all those “why” questions that can exasperate parents. However, somewhere along the way, too many of us get too certain about too many things. And just as often, our certainty uproots our curiosity.
I am not against certainty. But I do want to guard when certainty has dried up and is no longer adequate or functional. Certainty can close our minds. What might seem certain to us might turn out to be dated or flat out wrong at some point. Certainty can be defended to such a point that it becomes rigidity. If we are not careful, certainty becomes like the metaphorical Egypt from which the Israelites escaped. But it is that same certainty to beckons some of the folks and they want to turn back. While certainty can seem desirable, it can be deadly. Certainty can turn out to be illusion. It seems real, but it is not.
We need to move from certainty to curiosity. We need to value the curiosity that equips us to be open to and alert to the new, fresh and lively. It is curiosity that will deliver us to a future that will make the life we all want. Curiosity is the spiritual person wanting to know what God desires in any given situation. God certainly did not want the Israelites to go back to Egypt. God wanted to lead the people on to a new place and a new future. Of course, it is natural to be a little fearful to go forward. Curiosity does have a price, which may begin to explain why so many prefer certainty to curiosity.
We fear the unknown. There is no unknown in certainty---or so it seems. It is probably more accurate to say in certainty we don’t allow or recognize any unknown. The scary part is this is true of God, as well. In certainty we assume we know who God is and what God wants. It seems grounded in doctrine---right thinking---and correct behavior, however that is defined. But I would argue, this is not who God really is. God is not controlled by doctrine alone. God usually wants us to grow and growth implicates change.
Are you not curious who God is calling you and us to be? I am! I value my past and my tradition. They may well inform who I am and how I have come to be where I am. But I am actually more curious about where I am going. I want to be open, to quest and to be ready to move through any wilderness, because of the promise of a God who assures us that we are beloved and will be delivered. That’s enough for me to be curious enough to go for it!
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
Curiosity is the source of creativity and the motivation for discovery.
ReplyDelete