APNC Blog October 17, 2014

“The Art of Asking Questions” 

Let your love be sincere – a real thing; hate what is evil, loathe all ungodliness, turn in horror from wickedness, but hold fast to that which is good.  Love one another with kind affection – as members of one family –giving precedence and showing honor to one another. (Romans 12, Amplified Bible)

Curiosity _____ the cat.  What did curiosity do to the cat? Curiosity killed it. This familiar expression means that asking too many questions or inquisitiveness can lead one into dangerous situations. Let me share with you a little history of the phrase.

According to the website, The Phrase Finder, “Everyone knows that, despite its supposed nine lives, curiosity killed the cat. Well, not quite. The ‘killed the cat’ proverb originated as ‘care killed the cat’. By ‘care’ the coiner of the expression meant ‘worry/sorrow’ rather than our more usual contemporary ‘look after/provide for’ meaning. That form of the expression is first recorded in the English playwright Ben Jonson’s play Every Man in His Humour, 1598.

Curiosity hasn’t received a good press over the centuries. Saint Augustine wrote in Confessions, AD 397 that, in the eons before creating heaven and earth, God “fashioned hell for the inquisitive”. John Clarke, in Paroemiologia, 1639 suggested that “He that pryeth into every cloud may be struck with a thunderbolt”. In Don Juan, Lord Byron called curiosity “that low vice”. That bad opinion and the fact that cats are famously curiosity, led to the source of their deaths changed the proverb from ‘care’ to ‘curiosity’.

The earliest known version of the precise current form of the proverb in print is from The Galveston Daily News, 1898: It is said that once “curiosity killed a Thomas cat.” The frequent rejoinder to ‘curiosity killed the cat’ is ‘satisfaction brought it back’.”

The word “curiosity” comes from the Latin root cura, which means “to care, to tend, and to heal.” When we care enough about some person we are motivated to know more, understand better, explore deeper. Curiosity, as it relates to relationships, is the humble and sincere interest to know and care more about another person and her or his thoughts, beliefs, passions, and doubts. Curiosity is like an itch telling us to keep on looking for understanding.

Your Associate Presbyter Nominating Committee has been about the business of being curious, asking questions and finding real satisfaction. On Saturday, October 4, the Committee spent the day at the Presbytery Office huddled around the telephone and interviewing candidates for the position. On the first Saturday of November we will gather in East Mount Airy again for another round of interviews, this time using Skype.

We’ve asked candidates to “Tell us two or three important things about your faith in Jesus Christ.” Ministry begins with the claim of God through Christ on us. It all starts there. We also wanted to know how these candidates handle setbacks and conflict. Finally, we were curious about how these candidates take care of themselves. “Tell us about your practices of self-care.”

Asking good questions and responding with careful and gracious listening is serving us well. I can speak for the members of the Committee and say that we are blessed to have each other. Thank you for praying for us. Please continue to do so.

Stuart Spencer, Chair