Falling in love with curiosity

The colors and smells of spring tend to drive a surge of dopamine in our brains. According to one scientist, the flush of novelty swirling through the natural world this time of year is why “you’re prone to fall in love – and fall hard.”

Despite its ubiquity, “falling in love” is a strange metaphor. Is love a place into which one falls? Or a state of being that accompanies falling – as opposed to, say, falling in terror? Does the fall happen by accident, like tripping on a banana peel, or can it be pre-meditated, like performing a trust fall in a ropes course? Maybe “in love” is a diagnosis one can fall into, a positive alternative to “falling ill.” In my worldview, being in love is essential to the human experience. Sometimes it gets focused on a particular person, as with romantic love, but it’s bigger than that. Being in love with life is possible in any moment, though we’re easily distracted from it by the many problems of this imperfect world. From this perspective, perhaps falling in love is what happens – by coincidence, accident, destiny, or even intention – to bring us back to our true nature. We fall in love when we let go of “the problem” and allow ourselves to be held by a bigger reality.

For members of the Fellowship who attended our Annual Meeting last month, however, “the problem” may feel rather sticky and impervious to spring pheromones. For months, a task force has led the congregation in reflecting on the discrepancy between our income and our expenses, leading important conversations and generating a lot of good ideas. As the task force’s work is still incomplete, the Board did not incorporate it fully into their budget recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year. This was unsatisfying for some. At the meeting, members and leaders were surprised and unprepared to discuss a last minute alternate budget proposal that included significant cuts. While the proposal was ultimately not adopted, we left the meeting with a decision not to fund cost of living increases for staff – and many unresolved feelings. I doubt anyone felt that they “fell in love” that afternoon.

The title of Ailish Hopper’s poem “Did It Ever Occur to You That Maybe You’re Falling in Love?” begins with a litany of all our efforts to deal with “the problem.” 

We buried the problem.

We planted a tree over the problem.

We regretted our actions toward the problem.

We declined to comment on the problem.

We carved a memorial to the problem, dedicated it. Forgot our handkerchief.

We removed all “unnatural” ingredients, handcrafted a locally-grown tincture for the problem. But nobody bought it.

…

We prayed.

Burned problem incense.

Formed a problem task force. Got a problem degree. Got on the problem tenure track. Got a problem retirement plan.

We gutted and renovated the problem. We joined the Neighborhood Problem Development Corp.

We listened and communicated with the problem, only to find out that it had gone for the day.

We mutually empowered the problem.

…

The poet does not define “the problem,” and that’s ok. Problems may vary across time and people, but there’s something universal in our efforts to manage them. It is only after we try, try, try, and fail, that we’re willing to fall. When we fall, the problem doesn’t go away. In fact, we might realize that we’ve fallen in love with the problem, that we’ve become the problem. Ailish Hopper wrote this love poem after the 2016 election for those of us who are resisting bigotry, ignorance, and the consolidation of power. When we fall back into love with life, she says, we become willing to be a problem in order to disrupt the forces of hate.

The poem concludes in a demonstration of our monthly theme: Awakening Curiosity.

We watched carefully for the problem, but our flashlight died.

We had dreams of the problem. In which we could no longer recognize ourselves.

We reformed. We transformed. Turned over a new leaf. Turned a corner, found ourselves near a scent that somehow reminded us of the problem,

…

Effort can only take us so far. Sometimes it takes us too far – over the edge of goodwill and into the realm of control. Some problems are dangerous enough that we are compelled to stalk them across the landscape of our hopes and fears, but our flashlights inevitably fail and we are plunged into darkness. Only then, unable to control our insights, do our dreams wake us up to true curiosity. Only once we’ve fallen out of our old patterns can we blink and be open to new understandings. To transformation.

Read Ailish Hopper’s full poem here – preferably aloud. (There’s a bit of explicit language.)

I’m curious about what will come of the discussion at our Annual Meeting,  and I hope that a spirit of curiosity and goodwill will infuse our next steps. Looking back, I might describe the meeting as an hour of reports, followed by a collective effort to chew on “the problem” of the discrepancy between our income and our expenses. Or was it the discrepancy between the congregation’s needs and its volunteer base? Perhaps “the problem” was actually how long it takes to get up-to-date on what’s happening in the Fellowship; or the reality that three hours is too long to sit for any body, even in padded chairs. It could be that the problem is our fervent desire for both consensus and diversity. Maybe our problem is not wanting to follow leadership, or forgetting that we’re all responsible for leading. Or the way fear, which seems unavoidable these days, hijacks our rationality and compassion and robs us of our vision.

Both Embracing Possibility, last month’s theme, and Awakening Curiosity, this month’s theme, are spiritual practices for visionaries. That’s us. Embracing Possibility means accepting (with gusto!) that we don’t know what’s coming, but we can and should imagine, draw, and compute some example pathways. Our Income Expenses Discrepancy Task Force has skillfully initiated this work. Awakening Curiosity is a different discipline. Not knowing what’s coming, we cultivate a willingness to fall into the future anyway, ready to be surprised. Ready to love. How might you let yourself fall in love – with yourself, your friends or lovers, your garden, or your Fellowship – this spring?

I’ll close with a poem of my own.

Did it ever occur to you 

that maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about or, 

           if that’s your baseline, that you do? 

It’s a yes-or-no question, but I’ll accept answers of any hue —

we’re crafting a community from many points of view.

 

We’re waking up with ferocity 

sometimes forgetting to sheathe our animosity 

or to honor reciprocity.

 

But I have faith that our mistakes 

spur more possibilities we can embrace 

and deeper truths that we will face

together.

 

May we express a religiosity 

defined by generosity 

and humble curiosity.

 

May we remember that we don’t know

what we don’t know and that no

is not our only option.