{"id":1527,"date":"2020-03-09T19:44:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T00:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2020-03-09T19:47:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T00:47:47","slug":"to-wonder-and-be-curious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1527","title":{"rendered":"To Wonder and be Curious"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is an important corrective and counterbalance to the previous one<\/a>. The spiritual weapon of \u201ctalking back\u201d (antirrh\u0113sis<\/em>) is indeed powerful in the moment of temptation. Like Jesus in the desert, we can willfully claim and assert our glorious human dignity and freedom. We can swiftly and decisively fight back against evil before the temptation has a chance to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about all the calmer moments that precede? Jesus\u2019 victory in the moment of temptation flowed forth from all that came before: being claimed as God\u2019s beloved Son in his baptism and then spending forty days receiving spiritual strength through prayer and self-denial. It was his childlike dependence on his Father that won the deeper and more decisive victory. He came to the battle as one fully awake and aware, fully alive in his humanity. We who are members of his Body are invited to share in the same childlike trust, including the amazing human capacity for curiosity and wonder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus encourages us to become like little children. Every\nhealthy human child discovers the power of \u201cNo!!\u201d and \u201cMine!!\u201d and \u201cYou can\u2019t\nmake me!!\u201d Those words, properly learned and properly harnessed, can become wonderful\nweapons in the moment of temptation. Every healthy human child goes on to\ndiscover an even more powerful word: \u201cWhy?\u201d What a precious gift it is to have\ncuriosity and wonder at why things are the way they are. From philosophers to\npoets to scientists, all our greatest human achievements, all of our most\nshining successes emerge as fruits of childlike curiosity and wonder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is so easy to lose that curiosity and wonder. For one\nthing, it is exhausting to parents to hear the word \u201cWhy?\u201d a hundred times a\nday. It is tempting to stifle children in their pursuit of wisdom. For another\nthing, it is incredibly hard to have wonder and awe in moments of trial or\ntrauma. Whether war or abuse or addiction or mental illness, when our daily\nliving environment becomes a fight for survival, we do not tend to take time to\nsmell the roses or to marvel at why things are the way they are. We need to\nfeel safe and secure to be able to do that. Jesus faced Satan with an\nincredible sense of safety and security in the Father\u2019s love and in his own\nhuman dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have written before about the importance of getting down to the roots<\/a>. Sure, we can lop off the dandelion heads time and again \u2013 they will keep growing back until we uproot the plants. This is especially our human experience if we are struggling with habitual patterns of sin or addictive behaviors. In those cases, we may find ourselves fighting temptation again and again. We may win 99 out of 100 battles, only to fall hard once again into the same sin or struggle. Certainly we can celebrate those 99 victories and not wallow in shame over the one defeat. But even more importantly, we can give ourselves permission to step back calmly, to remember that we are a beloved child of God (even in our moments of sin). Basking in empathy and kindness and grace, we can look upon our situation and begin asking questions, engaging that gift of childlike curiosity and wonder. We can begin to asking \u00a0 \u201cIsn\u2019t that interesting\u2026?<\/em>\u201d \u00a0\u201cI wonder why that would happen just now\u2026?<\/em>\u201d And so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far too often, we engage in self-loathing and self-shaming. I can think of things I used to say often to myself: Why do I have to be this way?<\/em>\u201d \u201cThere I go again.<\/em>\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with me?<\/em>\u201d I\u2019m sure that most of you have your own inner critic in those moments as well. It doesn\u2019t have to be that way. We can shift gears, choosing empathy and kindness, and can begin asking questions with curiosity and wonder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For myself, one of my most frequent struggles is to feel the\nurge to eat something even when I am not at all hungry. I have learned\n(sometimes anyway) to \u201cjust notice that\u201d and wonder at it. Isn\u2019t it\ninteresting that I would feel the urge to eat something just now? I know I\u2019m\nnot hungry\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, my curiosity and self-reflection (and talking to\nothers about it) has led me to identify forty-two different behaviors\nthat spring up in me during times of unrest. Some are more sinful; others are\nbenign. All of them are ways of surviving and protecting me from feeling\nvulnerable and exposed. I am learning that it is not really those behaviors\nthat I am wanting, but instead I am reacting to feelings of insecurity, shame,\nfear, loneliness, or sadness. These are learned behaviors that have helped me\nsurvive in the past. I don\u2019t need them anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have begun looking at them as a cast of characters, as a\nmembers of the family in the drama of my interior life. When ten or twenty of\nthem start showing up at once, it\u2019s a sign to me that I really need to pay\nattention. Rather than running away, rather than becoming disgusted with\nmyself, I need to reach out and connect with someone who cares \u2013 God,\ncertainly, but also others in the flesh who can be a listening ear and an\nempathizing heart. These different parts of myself are not actually evil \u2013 they\nare trying to help me, but need to be integrated, re-organized, and directed.\nAs the prophet Isaiah promises, a little child will guide them all \u2013 first and\nforemost with his wonder and awe in God\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process is so counter-intuitive for many of us. Our\ntendency in the face of temptations is to run and to flee, and to see our\nhabitual temptation as bad. Instead, we could look at it much more like an\nindicator light on the dashboard of our car. It\u2019s there to get us to pay\nattention and look under the hood \u2013 calling on experts if need be. In cases\nlike mine, that may mean reaching out to a trained therapist or a support\ngroup, in addition to a spiritual mentor and good friends. Whatever helps us\nfeel safe and secure and rediscover the power of childlike wonder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our hearts are made in God\u2019s own image and likeness and are\nvery good. That means that even our most twisted fantasies or darkest thoughts,\nat their roots, begin as legitimate human needs and good desires. That means\nthat fighting temptation is not our only tactic. We need connection and safety\nin healthy human relationships; we need to reactivate our capacity for\ncuriosity and wonder, becoming like little children and in so doing becoming\nwhole and holy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is an important corrective and counterbalance to the previous one. The spiritual weapon of \u201ctalking back\u201d (antirrh\u0113sis) is indeed powerful in the moment of temptation. Like Jesus in the desert, we can willfully claim and assert our glorious human dignity and freedom. We can swiftly and decisively fight back against evil before the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “To Wonder and be Curious”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[57,62,55,54],"tags":[245,246,139,131,182],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healing","category-philosophy","category-scripture","category-spirituality","tag-curiosity","tag-isaiah","tag-jesus","tag-temptation","tag-wonder"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Wonder-and-Curiosity.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}