Curiosity Comes First

I wasn't raised in church, but it did show up in my life from time to time growing up. We're talking a handful of experiences, total — a Christmas Eve here, a family occasion there. Sporadic enough that I came in every time essentially as an outsider, wide-eyed and full of questions. Which, it turns out, was not exactly the vibe. The few times I did show up, I noticed pretty quickly: there was this low hum in the room that said, 'please ask questions...but not the hard ones."Questions like "How do we know...really?" or "What if we're wrong?" or just a really honest "I'm not sure I believe that"were not met with curiosity in return. They were met with an answer that arrived too fast, too clean, and clearly wasn't listening to what you actually asked. Questions were fine... as long as they didn't actually question anything.

That being said, I can't just blame the church, or religion as a whole, for that. (Much as I might sometimes like to.) The same dynamic showed up everywhere. In school, where teachers rewarded the right answer faster than the right question. In family spaces, where there were invisible fences around certain topics that everyone pretended weren't there. Even at home sometimes... where love was real and present, but sitting with the uncomfortable question wasn't always on the menu. The message wasn't always intentional. It rarely is. But the message landed anyway: 'we'd rather solve you than be curious about you.'

So I became an atheist. (I've told that part of the story before, so I'll spare you the full extended director's cut.) What's relevant here is why I became an atheist, at least partly: not because I stopped believing in something sacred... but because so few people in my life seemed curious enough to sit with me in the questions. They were too busy solving me.

I think about that a lot now. Because the impulse to fix...to answer fast, to resolve discomfort, to rush someone from their question to a conclusion...it doesn't only live in church basements or classrooms or family dinner tables. It shows up in hospitals, in city council meetings, on front porches, and yes... sometimes in nonprofits that love their neighbors and still somehow manage to assume they know what those neighbors need before they've listened long enough to find out. (No shade. I've done it. We've done it. It's humbling.)

Here's what I keep coming back to: Curiosity is not passive. It is not the polite head nod or the strategic pause before you say what you already planned to say. Curiosity is active. It listens before it concludes. It asks before it assumes. It stays in the question long enough to actually be changed by what it hears. That's why, in the rhythm we've been exploring, curiosity comes first. Not because it's the warmest or most exciting word. But because without it, everything that follows... care, connection, collaboration... goes sideways. You can be generous and wrong. You can be passionate and paternalistic. You can serve people beautifully in ways that quietly say, "I already knew what you needed before I showed up." And that is not love... even when it means well. Especially when it means well.

This is part of why Curious Krewe matters so much to me. When we started gathering people around questions instead of answers...just regular folks in a room, following their curiosity together...something kept happening that we didn't fully plan for. People felt seen. Not because someone fixed them or taught them or even agreed with them...but because somebody asked them a real question and then actually waited to hear the answer. It turns out that being asked a genuine question...and having someone lean in to listen... is one of the rarest and most generous things one human can offer another. Which says something. I'm not sure what exactly, but it says something.

Somewhere in all of that, I started to think about what Just Love actually is, underneath the programs and the partnerships and the spreadsheets (there are always spreadsheets). And the word that keeps surfacing is this: 

Curiosity is Just Love leaning in.

Not rushing to fix. Not arriving with the solution already packed. Not performing care for an audience. Just... leaning in. Asking the next honest question. Staying in the room long enough to be surprised. Because when you are actually curious about a person... really curious, not strategically curious... you treat them like they have something to teach you. And they do. Every single time.

The spiritual traditions I keep returning to all seem to know this, in their own ways. The contemplative practice of lectio divina asks you to sit with a text until it asks you a question. The Buddhist concept of "beginner's mind" is really just a practice of staying curious in the presence of things you think you already understand. Jesus was famous not for arriving with all the answers, but for asking questions that rearranged the furniture of how people saw themselves and each other. Even the best therapy isn't about diagnosis... it's about asking the question the person is ready to hear.

All of that is to say: curiosity is not just a personality trait for the especially open-minded among us. It is a practice. Aspiritual one. And like any practice, it requires intention... because our default... especially when we love people and want to help them... is to solve first and listen second... and usually for the answers we want to hear.

So here is the one thing I'll ask of you before the next post: Find one conversation this week where you resist the urge to answer or comment, and ask a question instead. A real one. Not a setup. Not a lead. Just a question you don't already know the answer to... and then actually listen. Stay in the room. Let yourself be curious.  Maybe even ask ANOTHER question.

And that's it. That's the practice.

Because care becomes accurate when curiosity comes first. And Just Love — at its best — is just that: love, leaning in.

Wishing you grace, peace, and every good...

Sam