The Blessing and the Curse ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
May 3, 2026
I was attempting to meditate for a short while yesterday. I am confident that I possess some gifts, but to be honest, meditation just doesn’t seem to be one of them. I remind myself that’s why we call it a practice. But as I sat, and my mind instantly flooded with every single thing that there is for a human to think about, it struck me that in a way, meditation is something like opening Pandora’s Box. You never know what might come flying out when you start. I try to remember that in some versions of the ancient myth the last thing left in the box was hope. Perhaps there is hope for my practice.
This is not the subject of today’s sermon, merely an observation. We’re here to think together about Curiosity, and whether we think it’s a positive or a negative human attribute. Is curiosity a blessing to humankind, or a curse?
Suppose you’re standing in the most beautiful orchard you can ever imagine, surrounded by trees laden with perfect fruit. It’s a perfect day, sort of like San Diego, because you’re in paradise. Now, you’ve been told by a voice of authority not to touch the fruit on one particular tree, the most beautiful tree with the loveliest fruit of all. But then you start to hear another voice, kind of a hissing sort of voice, sort of like a snake, that is urging you toward that tree, toward that perfect fruit. “Go on,” hisses the voice. “You know you want it.” Your interest in that tree has been growing ever since you arrived in paradise, and suddenly, you are overwhelmed by your curiosity. You pick an apple, and bite into it.
Probably everyone knows what happened next. Suddenly you find yourself in a new place, not nearly as perfect, maybe someplace in the Rust Belt. In winter. And, as the story continued, the Voice of Authority returned and cursed Eve, the first woman, who picked and tasted the forbidden fruit, and told her that not only was she cast out of paradise but forevermore, women would be doomed to suffer great pain in childbirth. Nothing was ever the same.
The more I think about curiosity, the more complicated it becomes. It is a fundamental attribute of humanity; it is a part of what makes us human. Imagine life without it! Curiosity is what drives us forward, makes us wonder, and fuels progress. Without curiosity there would be no science, no experiments. Without curiosity there would be no motivation to travel, to explore, or to attempt to reach for the stars.
Those reading River of the Gods this month are seeing how curiosity impels us forward toward new discoveries. There’s a great quote in the book: “The world is a great book, of which those who never leave home read but a page.”
Given that curiosity is such a basic part of who we are, it’s interesting that the ancient myths warned humans so strongly not to succumb to it. Now, first we must ask, were they warning all humans, or merely females? It was Pandora, and Eve, after all, the first human women, who were blamed for unleashing all the evils into the world, and for acquiring forbidden knowledge. I doubt that casting women in that role was an accident.
Maybe it wasn’t a warning. Perhaps, as Pat noted a few minutes ago, the gods wanted to preserve their stature by hoarding all the knowledge and power for themselves. In acting like that, they were, of course, displaying the darker side of very human nature, even though they were gods. Throughout history we have seen dominant people grasping for control and power. We are seeing it now, on a daily basis.
Regardless of the reason, the message from ancient times was that curiosity was a bad thing, and was met with severe punishment, even eternal punishment. What didn’t the gods want us to know?
Perhaps the intent was to warn humans that curiosity can have consequences. We can all picture what happens when a child wonders whether he or she can jump from the porch roof. But how about the consequences of wondering about the future? How curious are we about the future? What do we really want to know – about our lifespans, for example, our health, or the state of the world? Maybe the gods are trying to warn us that we want to be careful, and not try to open the lid and peek into the box of the future. We’d love to be reassured that all will be well until the end, but we might not be able to face finding out that the future holds frightening times. The repercussions of foreknowledge could be devastating.
And yet, of course we remain curious. Since the 19th century, the idea of time travel, either returning to the past or somehow ahead into the future, has held great fascination for people, usually with the idea of changing outcomes. A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, is an early example. Ebenezer Scrooge’s travel back to past events and forward into the future is harrowing, and yet, he is able to change his future and the future of those around him. We would not all be so fortunate. We could end up feeling cursed.
Still, even with the likelihood of consequences, any sort of human progress would be impossible without curiosity. It’s easy to think about science and learning of all kinds. But what else does curiosity offer us?
If we learn to think of curiosity as a practice, as an intentional choice of how to see each other and the world, we see that curiosity offers great blessings. It helps us to stay open-minded and open-hearted. If we learn to be genuinely curious about one another, about our lives and our choices, we are not likely to be fearful, and we give others’ humanity a chance to shine through. If you are interested in the woman wearing hijab who lives down the street, her visible differences won’t feel as overwhelming. You might smile at her and say hello at the bus stop. You’ll forget to label her. Over time, you’ll learn more about her; what she does, how her life is similar and different to yours.
We are a fearful country these days, this land of the brave. We are so afraid of those who look and sound different, so focused on skin color and accents, on who belongs and who does not. The best way out of that fog of suspicion and fear is curiosity. From a stance of fear, we shut down, reject connections. From the open-heartedness of curiosity, we can find ways to connect, to find common ground, to broaden our definition of community.
Curiosity leads us to become less judgmental, as well; as I said a second ago, less likely to slap labels on each other. Let’s try a short thought experiment. Say you’re walking past a playground, and you notice a young parent sitting next to a child playing, but instead of interacting, intently studying their phone. “Parents these days,” you might think. “Not focusing on their child, too busy with their phone.” Now, what happens if you get curious instead of rushing to judgment? “I wonder what might be going on for that young parent today?” you ask yourself. Maybe they found out their landlord is not renewing their lease. Maybe their childcare provider didn’t show up and they need to find help right now. If you remind yourself to wonder what might be happening, you watch with your heart and mind open, and you shift away from the negative thinking that parents today are doing it all wrong.
If we think about curiosity in this way, we can see it as a blessing, not just for ourselves alone, but as an orientation that can have a ripple effect throughout our society, one encounter at a time.
One of the best things about liberal religions, such as Unitarian Universalism, is that we try to be critical thinkers; we are willing to look at paradoxes. The quality of curiosity offers us just such a paradox; we see that it has contradictory characteristics. Without curiosity, humans would not flourish. But it can create misery and fear. Our work is to recognize both the benefits and the damages.
Nothing is all good, or all bad. Curiosity is both a blessing and a curse. As with everything we encounter in our human lives, we must find a balance between the two in deciding when curiosity benefits us, and when it is detrimental. We’ll try to keep a child from testing gravity by jumping off the porch roof. But we should give them all the tools we can to learn and explore safely. We humans have agency to try to minimize the consequences of too much curiosity. We don’t need the gods to decide that for us, and to punish us for our natural impulses.
And while we’re at it, let’s stop cursing women for being curious.
Amen.
