Trusting our Questions - How Curiosity Unlocks the Bible and Restores Spiritual Life
I have vivid memories of my younger daughter as a preschooler sneaking off in the early morning to have her ‘quiet time’ in imitation of her father. She couldn’t read on her own, but that didn’t stop her from finding a Bible and retreating to a corner where she would stare down at the text pious and uncomprehending. It was cute. At the time I felt proud of the imitation and hoped that it was a practice she might grow into over the years. I also assumed it was an indication of spiritual curiosity. I was wrong.
As a teenager, more than a decade since her preschool days, my daughter confessed her motivation. “It was a competition,” she said, “I wanted to see if I could sit quietly with the bible for longer than you.” Then she sighed, “but, I was four, so you always won.”
Eugene Peterson’s reflections of a similar experience with his grandson put this experience in a new perspective. He describes, “Hans on that park bench, “reading” but not reading, reverent and devout without an awareness that it has anything to do with either the lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich he has just eaten or the museum he is about to visit, oblivious to his grandmother next to him: Hans “reading” his Bible. A parable.”
Nearly half (48%) of all Americans used the Bible regularly in 2019, according to the American Bible Society’s 2019 State of the Bible report. Presumably, most did so to make a connection with God and deepen their faith.
It’s surprising, then, that only about half of those who use the Bible regularly (24%), according to ABS’ survey, said they had discovered the connection and transformation they were looking for.
The American Bible Society’s report reflects the dangers Peterson sees in his grandson on that park bench. Sadly, the habit of Bible reading without recognition, and consuming content without curiosity, is not restricted to precocious preschoolers. Too many adults have ceased to be meaningfully curious about the spiritual life. Without curiosity we read our Bibles and say our prayers without experiencing any real transformation. This lack of curiosity leads to spiritual malaise in the form of distraction, apathy, or boredom.
Spiritually Bored
It may be that some of our spiritual boredom is the result of well-intended efforts to solidify conviction. I’ve met hundreds of students over the years whose Christian upbringing had long since lost its personal relevance. The stories of these students are strikingly similar. As a middle or high school student they are exposed to people, circumstances, or perspectives that challenge their faith. It could be a parent’s divorce, a friend “coming out”, the sudden death of a loved one, a trusted classmate or teacher who challenged Christian assumptions, or awakening to the challenges and struggles of racial injustice and the church’s complicit history in slavery and segregation. These students bring their questions to a pastor or youth leader and are told to, “just have faith.”
The consequences of this admonishment are threefold. First, the student learns that there are questions or topics off limits for Christian faith. This perspective influences not only their engagement with their peers, pastors, and parents, but their engagement with scripture as well. If, for example, sexual minorities are an off-limits topic for conversation, what do we make of the Ethiopian eunuch, the woman at the well, Mary the mother of Jesus, or those ‘made eunuchs for the kingdom of God’? These stories, or the questions they invariably raise, are screened out in advance, dampening curiosity.
A second consequence is the belief that Christian faith has no answers to the important questions raised by students’ experience. Rather than explore the, admittedly mixed but nevertheless rich, history of Christian thought on the problem of evil, just war, peacebuilding, sexual ethics, philosophy of science and political history, the student comes to assume that their understanding of the Christian faith, often no more than a third-grade understanding, is complete.
The third consequence is that the student stops being curious. Some students lower their expectations of what a life with God is supposed to be. These students maintain their involvement in a Christian community, but their confidence in the scriptures and tradition diminishes. They may dutifully participate in worship, read their Bibles, and pray, but neither expect or experience curiosity. Other students resolve the tension by compartmentalizing their ‘spiritual’ life from the rest of their life. These students may fully participate in Christian activities with sincere devotion while in church, but focus their curiosity on their ‘secular’ life. Finally, there are those who resolve the tension by leaving their faith communities altogether.
Thus a, perhaps, well-intentioned desire to encourage confident faith can actually produce spiritual apathy, distraction, and boredom.
Recovering curiosity is key to rediscovering our confidence in Christian faith and our commitment to scripture. We need to return to the Bible, not as pious, uncomprehending consumers, but rather as curious learners.
Rediscovering Curiosity
The call to cultivate curiosity is not terribly useful as a general principle. According to Daniel Kahneman, the human brain necessarily processes information in two distinct modes. Our ‘fast’ thinking enables us to process and apply information quickly by screening out details and conforming new data into recognizable and familiar patterns. This system isn’t ‘curious’ by design. It helps our brains to conserve energy and allows us to perform and process the thousands of tasks and interactions we have every day. In contrast, our ‘slow’ thinking system pays attention to details, engages in analytical work, and considers new information. This system is curious by default.
Cultivating curiosity in the spiritual life requires intentionally slowing down our thinking as we engage with scripture, reflect on our experience, and as we interact with other people.
Unlocking Scripture’s Mysteries
Many of the methods I’ve used to teach students how to engage scripture are designed to unlock curiosity. It’s fun, for example, to print out a poster sized copy of the first 15 verses of Mark’s gospel, hand students a bunch of markers and ask them to go mark key words, ideas, phrases, and textual connections. In about 10 minutes, the posters are awash with color and students are beginning to see the gospel in a whole new way.
The purpose behind this teaching method is to force students to slow down their thinking for long enough that their curiosity has time to emerge. Adding colors, lines, and shapes onto the text adds visual complexity and forces the brain to not just file the passage into the familiar pattern it already knows, but to open itself to new, and undiscovered, possibilities.
Our curiosity about scripture needs to go deeper than grammar and syntax analysis, however, if we’re going to discover the depths of life with God. Curiosities about language, structure, genre, and message can lead us to broader questions. What is this passage saying about God? What tensions or unresolved questions does this passage raise? What does this passage say about people? How does that relate to my experience? The tensions that emerge as we engage these questions are not to be avoided, but should lead us back into scripture as we attempt to puzzle out what the Bible has to say to our tensions and questions.
Discovering Ourselves
Cultivating curiosity in our Bible study is helpful, but insufficient to lead us to the transformation that so many of us seek. We must also cultivate curiosity about ourselves, specifically about our response to God. Interest in spiritual direction has exploded in the last few years. This interest says something about our hunger to cultivate curiosity in this area of the spiritual life.
A good spiritual director is not a therapist, counselor, or priest, though some spiritual directors also serve in those vocations. The art of spiritual direction is helping someone slow down enough to notice and get curious about the movements of God in their inner life, relationships, and experiences. Slowing down to notice what happens when we pray, noticing times of joy and contentment, or reflecting on times of anger, frustration, or grief, raises questions we may not realize we had.
“I can’t help noticing,” my spiritual director said, “that last time we met you were talking about your desire to be more present to your children, and this week your daughter asked you to pray with her.” He was right. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? Was God answering my prayers? And, if this was an answer to prayer, why were my feelings about it ambiguous? These vital questions unlocked curiosity and helped me see God differently.
Noticing Others
Healthy Christian spirituality also cultivates curiosity about others. Genuine curiosity about the experience of other people, their likes and dislikes, their questions, concerns, and perspectives, will enable us to love and serve them well. Perhaps a funny story will illustrate this well.
Tim loves dark chocolate. When Doug joined Tim’s team, Tim celebrated by giving Doug some dark chocolate. Doug, wanting to honor his new boss’ intention, accepted the gift graciously. Over the course of that year every time Doug performed well, hit a goal, or went above and beyond, Tim celebrated Doug with dark chocolate. The only problem was that Doug doesn’t like dark chocolate. It wasn’t until Doug had worked with Tim for a full year before Doug said, “Tim, I appreciate you celebrating our work… you should know… I don’t like dark chocolate.”
Tim’s lack of curiosity about Doug’s preferences led to a year’s worth of celebrations that were less meaningful to Doug than they might have been. This is a small and innocuous example. Sometimes the consequences of our lack of curiosity are more significant. Cultivating curiosity in this area will help us to live out the many directives we find in scripture to love and serve our neighbor.
What would have happened if, as I noticed my four-year-old skulk off into a corner with her Bible, I had gotten curious about what she was up to and asked her about it? How might my curiosity have helped me to tend the sparks of her own spiritual curiosity?
While far too many of us have ceased to be curious about the spiritual life, it doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of reading our Bibles and saying our prayers without experiencing any real transformation we can cultivate curiosity. This would bring about transformation, speaking to the distraction, apathy, and boredom so prevalent in our experience. Not only that, but it could help us know God, know ourselves, and love others.