Curiosity (May 2019 Minister’s Blog)

Both Eve and Pandora were set up to fail and have carried too much misplaced blame. In the month of May let us see curiosity for what it is—a gift.

Eve lived in Paradise but was told she could not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Many people misquote or misremember and think that the apple was from the tree of knowledge. Specifically, that apple helped her (or cursed her) to know the difference between Good and Evil, a concept she did not have to know because Paradise only had Good.

Pandora, though, I think was given a worse deal. Distinctly given the Gift or Curse of Insatiable Curiosity, she was given a box and told she could not open it. Of course she opened it because we humans can resist anything except temptation. When she opened it, All the Bad Things got released into the world that had previously been under lock and key. The one thing left in the box was Hope. Hope had not been in the world before because it was unnecessary in Paradise.

Friends, Paradise has always been a hoax. The concept is used to keep us in our place–human, imperfect, lower than the gods. Curiosity is the hero of our story.

In our everyday human lives we will experience death and illness, grief, injury, and every other human loss. Curiosity is usually the thing that leads us to healing, or at least to holding out for the Hope of healing. If scientists and doctors were not curious we would not have cures and immunizations. Without Curiosity we would not have music or art.

Curiosity, taught as the downfall of humankind, is really our strongest tool, but Curiosity makes it hard to control humans. Holding onto Hope makes it hard to control humans, too. Any child who goes into a situation with a million questions and the hope of getting them all answered is going to change the world. They always do. Even if their names are Eve or Pandora.

Curiosity and Hope forever and ever, amen!

In peace with love,

Rev. Amy

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