Safe To Be, Safe to Grow:: Curiosity

When I was a very young child I was certain that there was much of the world that I didn't understand. How did plugging in a TV send me a picture of something that is going on hundreds of miles away? How did pouring a stinky liquid in our car make it go? Why was sleep necessary?

As I got older they forced me to ignore all of these awesome questions and focus on boring stuff like numbers, letters, words and sentences. This process kept building and laying claim to the majority of my life until I was 18 and graduating high school. At that stage I was fairly certain I didn't have much else to learn. I had given most of my time, effort and energy for 13 out of my 18 years on Earth to education. How much more could there be?

But as education continued something funny started to happen. I became more and more convinced that I didn't know anything. Any field of study that you're introduced to has so much depth and complexity. When you look at the number of fields of study that exist you start to realize that you know close to 0% of the information the world has to offer.

I was sure I knew nothing. I was sure I knew it all. Then I'm certain I don't know anything. (To prove that point, I just spent the last 2 minutes debating if the "i" in I'm should be capitalized and had to ask Sarah)

So, how do we react to a world where there is far more that we don't know than what we do know?

Curiosity feels like a good first step and I love this quote from S. Leonard Rubinstein.

"Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance."

How great is that?! We get to drop out of the "know-it-all" game and embrace our ignorance as the engine to growth and maturity. This week we are looking at the third of our five core values in curiosity. We describe it as; We recognize there is more that we don't know about God and the world than what we do know. We lean into mystery with questions and openness to grow.