A Tenacious Curiosity Makes You Better

Norman Vincent Peale loved the story of the fire at Thomas Edison's factory. He included the story about the fire at Edison's factory in his "treasury," a collection of stories and anecdotes. It is also a favorite of mine.

The story goes, near the end of his life, after Thomas Edison moved from, Menlo Park to West Orange, after all the big inventions were invented, a fire destroyed his workshops.  It was a late night in winter, and the fire spread quickly and engulfed all the buildings where Edison kept his inventions, projects, and patents.  Edison was elderly and, during the fire, nowhere to be found.

              After a frantic search, his son found him staring at the smoldering remains.  Worried his father was overcome and distraught he sat with him, sought to comfort him.  After a long silence, the elderly Edison spoke, “they’re all gone.  They’re all gone.”  Thinking his father was referring to his work and lifetime of achievement he tried to console him.  But then Edison said, “no, our mistakes.  All our mistakes are gone.  Now we can begin again without them.”

              When I first read this story, I took the claim of Edison to be a kind of super positive thinking.  Quite a spin.  A fire destroys everything you made and built and you are ready to get back to work.  Now though when I remember this story what I hear is not positive thinking, but tenacious curiosity.  I hear a recognition of bias, our near sightedness; I hear the limits we impose with fear. Our mistakes.  I hear those and for just a moment I try to imagine looking at life without them, without our mistakes. What would it be like to gaze upon the world with tenacious curiosity, without fear?  What would it feel like to say, all our mistakes are gone?

              I have a series of quotes, adages, sayings, a treasury if you will.  My children have heard them many times.  Often these treasures are greeted with an eyeroll. As my children have aged, some of my favorite sayings are quoted back to me to say, “it goes for you too pal.”  It is a strange moment, being wrong and right at the same time.      

              One persistent quote came from the psyche hospital: never argue with delusion. Waste of time. Ralph Waldo Emerson provided ample quotes. Two tried and true ones are: “to be great is to be misunderstood.” I like that, take comfort in that.  Another “aim as high as you possibly can for you will surely fail.” Again, a strange sense of assurance.  Yet, the one adage I gave to my children, my words, was the one often greeted with the most consternation: the only thing you can’t do is give up.  This one often arose with the plea, “I can’t do this.”  The only thing you can’t do is give up.

              A favorite but a bit adapted is something Shakespeare said, how I quote him is close to the text.  My adapted quote Shakespeare goes, “practice your philosophy in common talk.”  In some form or another I hear those words nearly every day.  Say what you mean in ways all can hear.  Don’t hide in sophistry or the shadows of lucubration.  Speak plainly.

              Although it is not found in his prose or poetry, a favorite quote of mine is attributed to Walt Whitman.  It goes something like this “be more curious than judgmental.”  If you watched the television show Ted Lasso you might remember this quote.  Ted was playing darts and being demeaned by a very awful man, Rupert.  As Ted tossed darts on the board, it was clear how he was being judged by Rupert, how he saw Ted as a rube, an idiot. Rupert gave a nasty grin when Ted offered to play a game of darts, with the winner getting a hefty prize. Rupert was a champion dart player.

Sensing this Ted said, you know people have judged me all my life.  They didn’t know me, though.   If they had just been more curious than judgmental, it would have been better.  Like you, if you been more curious you would know I am right-handed and grew up playing darts.  Shifting the darts to his right-hand Ted tossed them perfectly and defeated the evil Rupert.  Be more curious than judgmental.

This is great advice, a great way to live.  There is so much to look at, to encounter in life, if you are curious.  Emily Dickinson suggested she was not ready to die because she wanted more time to explore such a curious earth.

Last summer as I walked more than a dozen Gothic cathedrals and great churches in and around Paris, my curiosity was unbridled.  Each rose window, each double columned ambulatory, each flying buttress and ribbed vault were an invitation, look at this, look over here, just wait till you reach the transept, then you will be in awe.  And I was.  Question after question, image after image filled my imagination.

Recently I was reading an article on the difference between the sexpartite vaults and the quadripartite vaults being realized in 13th century gothic churches.  (Yes, I was and completely fascinated.) As I was reading this very practical discourse, I was curious about the etymology of the word vault.  In essence a vault can be seen as a rounded section of a ceiling. Yet, a vault from its Latin root of volvere also means to leap over, think pole vaulter.  With this second definition, when I thought of vault as leaping, suddenly in my mind the rounded vaulted ceilings were moving, the ribs of the vaulted ceiling where in motion, spinning.  Amazing.

Sometimes the first definition, the classic definition of something limits what you can see.  We grow up thinking one way, but then something happens, and we see a person, place, thing in a different way.  Our reading today is such a moment.  Luke offers three parables of Jesus all connected with the theme of something be lost and then found.  A shepherd loses a lamb, a woman loses a coin, a father loses a son.  And then, they are found.  The curious part to our reading and the next two parables as well, is that are all identified by what is lost.  We read the parable of the lost lamb.  In a few weeks we will read the parable of the lost coin.  All of us know the parable of the prodigal son, the lost son.  Yet each one of these parables is about the one who is seeking what is lost, not so much about what is lost.

This is important because the classic correlation in our parable today is that the lost lamb is associated with the sinners with whom Jesus cavorts.  Jesus was criticized by the righteous for hanging out with tax collectors and prostitutes, for dining with the disreputable.  The classic correlation is the outcasts and sinners are the lamb; we make this correlation because we describe people as "lost" in sin; being a sinner is when you "lose" your way or "lose" your moral compass. 

Identifying the lost lamb with lost people is a classic interpretation of this parable.  The next classic correlation is to make Jesus the shepherd who risks the ninety-nine to find the one.  It is a loving image. I think of it like a parent searching for a lost child.  Preaching on this passage many, many years ago I shared a vignette from Chicken Soup for the Soul.  The vignette was about a father searching for a runaway son.  His son's name was Roberto.  Not able find him, the father wrote a note and put in a very public place where people would see it.  The note said, Roberto, I love you; I am sorry.  Meet me here tomorrow.  Dad.  The next day the father didn't find his son, but he did find five other young men named Roberto who had come in the hope of being found.

The classic understanding, which is good and lovely and kind, the classic interpretation of the parable being about the lost lamb keeps us from the profound meaning. This parable should be titled the shepherd who didn't give up.  The shepherd who finds the lost despite the risk.  I say this because at the heart of this parable, and the two to follow, is judgment, our sense of self-righteousness, our need to be right and how limiting it is.  Jesus tells these parables to suggest the Pharisees were no longer searching, no longer curious about life.  They had the answers.

The shepherd searches for the lamb until he finds it; he doesn't give up; he is tenacious.  He keeps going. Tenacity to continue and not give up is not a picture of God in Jesus, it is the image of our life if we were to live without judgment, if we were to live with curiosity more than judgment.  If we could look over the ruin and see the future without our mistakes. 

I lost a dear friend this week.  Bob Sturtz is his name.  Bob worked into his nineties at his chemical company, going to work each morning.  He was very wealthy but lived modestly.  He was very bright, but he was even more humble.  He and his wife Jean lived next door to us.  Great neighbors.  Bob was an elder of the church.  So I saw him a lot. 

When I heard of his death my mind went to the story he told once at a men’s breakfast.  A childhood story about breaking a windowpane in a storm door because he didn’t latch it correctly.  How his father chastised him and scolded him about how thoughtless he was and how the family didn’t have money to pay for his mistakes.  Later that day, his father didn’t latch the door correctly and another pane broke.  I remember him welling up with tears and saying my father apologized to me and told me I was a good boy. 

Often when I’m feeling a bit of a failure, I hear Bob say, “you’re good boy.”  I hear this because he lived this way, looked at people this way.  He treasured the memory of his father's apology because he felt restored, but also, I believe because he wanted to be merciful, be kind, treat others with grace.

Thinking of Bob Sturtz and his life I remembered something more, something giving me a whole different understanding.  I remembered how he asked questions. Bob would sidle up and put one finger to his lips and look you dead in the eye and say, "I am curious."  Every question Bob asked me always started with "I am curious."  And he truly was.

The classic understanding of our parable today, like its long-standing title, is how sinners are lost lambs and God goes out to find the lost.  Not a bad message, not a bad interpretation.  But not a lot for us to do, not much for us to live.  If we recast the parable, retitle it, as the tenacious shepherd who searches until he finds the lost, if we read it as a question of curiosity rather than judgment, suddenly we have something to live.

Jesus wasn't telling the Pharisees they were hypocrites or self-righteous.  He gave them a parable to challenge their lack of curiosity, to turn over the definitions, the bias, the corners we back ourselves into.  Curiosity in these parables is not being skeptical or doubtful or questioning as a matter of criticism, like, "what were you thinking" or "why can't you drive your car."  Curiosity here is more than wondering, it is searching, and even more, it is searching until you find what is lost.

Be more curious than judgmental.  Try to imagine a future without our mistakes, without our bias.  Wonder what a world we could see if we had tenacious curiosity and did not give up.  Because remember, the only thing you can't do is give up.  Amen.