Wondering our way toward wholeness

LOUISVILLE — Author Britney Winn Lee literally wrote the book on sacred curiosity, and she had plenty to tell Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe, the hosts of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” earlier this month. Listen to their 54-minute conversation here.

Last month, Broadleaf Books published Lee’s most recent book, “Sacred Curiosity: Wondering Our Way Toward Wholeness.”

Image

“One of the things I discovered during my deep dive into curiosity was how incredibly accessible it is,” she told the hosts. “It doesn’t require adding a ton more to an already maxed-out schedule or nervous system.”

Instead, “the way it has been part of my journey is it has manifested as a breadcrumb trail that leads to the next question, the next healing, the next conversation, the next connection.” The book came from “how I was in a dark place, a deep well of grief.”

“As I say in the book, I hated and feared less at the end of this journey,” she said. “I would not have said that was possible before my counselor said, ‘I think maybe you might find some life and color again if you just follow a little bit of curiosity and awe and wonder.”

She said she thinks of curiosity as “a tiny change in posture, asking one more question or keeping one more conversation going.”

She’s also clear what curiosity is not, and in response to a question by Doong, she said it’s not scrolling endlessly through one’s social media feed.

“When I’m scrolling, I could call it curiosity. But a lot of times it’s really a hunt for certainty,” she said. “I have started wondering, what if none of that is actually curiosity? What if curiosity is an openness?”

Catoe asked about the connection between curiosity and empathy. “If we are really curious, we are released from that hate and that fear,” he said.

That got Lee to remembering an immigration immersion experience she and others took some years ago along the U.S.-Mexico border. A guide took them to a place in the desert where vigilantes had shot up water stations designed to keep immigrants alive.

“I could feel the anger and hate welling up in me,” she said. Then the guide saw some border patrol agents she knew and started up a conversation. “She does this work day in and day out,” Lee said. “She came back to the vehicle and said, ‘The minute we stop being curious, everybody loses.’”

Maybe curiosity isn’t a luxury, Lee thought. “Maybe it’s strategy. Maybe it’s human,” she told the hosts. “Maybe it’s how we get to the other side together without destroying each other. Some of it feels pie in the sky, but to see it in action” made Lee think at the time, “this is how I want to live my life — not just locking into the certainty of the sides, but going, OK, what is a different story that could be possible here?”

Lee has a friend who once told her, “I just feel like God can’t only be found in being correct.”

“I think that’s an understatement,” Lee said. Theologically, we have “adopted infrastructures and systems that have bought into the idea that if I’m right, then I’m good, and if I’m good, then I’m safe.”

Another friend Lee disagreed with theologically once told her, “This is what I think, but I could be wrong.” Lee thought that was one of the most loving things she’d ever heard. “That keeps the conversation open and going,” she said.

Catoe asked Lee to identify some ways “we can develop these curiosity muscles.”

She suggested “using curiosity to tune into yourself.” One practice Lee uses is asking herself “the five whys,” which is a way to keep one’s internal conversation going.

One day, she was out with her dogs walking the neighborhood. That day, “I was so angry and irritated and put out.” When a bird pooped on her, it was the last straw. “I felt like I could burn down the whole world,” she said. “It was the tipping point.”

Instead, she went home and sat for a while outside. “There was a flicker of ‘you need to be a little curious right now,’” she said. She asked herself, “why am I so mad?” “The bird,” she told herself. “Why did the bird set you over?” “It’s a hot day outside and I shouldn’t have to be walking.” “Why are you walking?” “I’m walking because I’m on this terribly burdensome health journey for our infertility.” “Why is that such a big deal today?” “I just got back from a baby shower for a loved one.”

“Oh! There it is,” she told herself. “I’m not mad at the world. I’m not mad at this bird. I’m sad and I’m grieving.”

Image

She’s also used that kind of gentle questioning with loved ones who are at a different end of the theological spectrum, Lee said. “I have at times reacted to that content, especially if something is said in a charged or accusatory or hateful or othering way,” she said. “In moments when curiosity has led the way, I have responded with, ‘Can you tell me why you’re scared about this?’” when the conversation has turned to, say, immigration policy. “I have said, ‘I’m not scared about this. If you’d like to know why, I’d love to tell you.’” Then Lee tells them “a story about a real person I know. You’re talking about stats and slogans,” she tells them. “I’m talking about a real human I have been in the room with.” A handful of times, “all the walls have come down,” she said. “No one has changed their mind, but I feel we are a little more connected, and who knows what seeds have been planted?”

She asked the hosts if Presbyterians “love a good labyrinth as much as United Methodists.” “You’d better believe it,” Catoe told her.

It’s a counterintuitive trek, she said. “You’re trying to get to the center and you’re just a foot away, and then it takes you back out again,” Lee said. “In a labyrinth, when it takes longer, maybe it’s going faster. The last are first, the least are the greatest, long is short and out is in. There’s a mystery around that. The math doesn’t quite work,” she said, “but sometimes longer is shorter.”

In the book, she talks about “coming to a point where I thought, God has to be bigger than whatever this curated box of answers I have concocted or adopted or perpetuated,” she said, adding her favorite scripture is in John’s epistle, “God is love.”

“Curiosity in our faith helps in our posture toward God. God is so big and so limitless, in our neighbor and in our enemy,” she said. “One more question keeps the conversation going and gives hope a heartbeat.”

“If hope has a heartbeat, then resurrection is possible,” she said. “We thought [death] was the end, but it wasn’t. There’s a real resurrective quality to that idea.”

New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Listen to previous editions here.