By Heather Melton, UTO Staff Officer
A few years ago, the UTO Board did a lot of work around what the core values that guide the work of the UTO Board should be. We did this work with a fantastic Lutheran pastor, Sarah Ciavarri, who worked with us using a program called “Dare to Lead” from the Brené Brown Research and Education Group. A lot of good things came out of this training, but the one thing we refer to most often is the clarity we gained around the core values that support and uphold the work that the UTO Board and staff has the honor to undertake. Three values were selected: gratitude, transparency, and curiosity. The first two are pretty self-explanatory: We want to make sure we practice what we preach on gratitude and that the work we do is accessible and clear to those who want to learn more, from our budget to the grant process (while still honoring the confidentiality of the applicants). The final one, curiosity, might be less clear, so this month I wanted to take some time to talk about what curiosity means to me personally and to our work at UTO.
Years ago there was a Netflix series called “Emily’s Wonder Lab.” It is a fantastic show that walks kids through science projects, but the tagline is, “Stay curious and keep exploring.” I love this line (and the show) because so often in life we can find ourselves lost in routine. When I was a parish priest and working with struggling congregations I would often hear the refrain, “But we’ve always done it that way,” to which I would ask, “How is that working out for you?” I often wonder if we take tradition to an extreme in the church, to the point where it is no longer serving us well but becomes something we do out of a sense of duty or because we’re afraid someone might be upset or disappointed if we don’t do it. I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting we throw it all out and start new, but tradition makes a great friend of curiosity. Curiosity asks why we are doing what we’re doing. To me, when we get curious about something, we turn it over and over until we’ve explored all facets of the process, evaluated what is working and what isn’t. Curiosity asks us to give thanks for what was great but isn’t working anymore as we seek new ways to live more authentic lives.
When we adopt curiosity as a core value, it also means we have to reevaluate our relationship with failure. Failure, or the fear of it, often keeps us from trying new things. It can make our lives smaller than we intended and keep us from being explorers. Failure is a real thing, and the criticism that comes with it is also real. This means that failure has to been seen differently or it will keep us from being curious. For UTO, failure is not a measure of our worth, but when something doesn’t go as planned, we get curious about why it didn’t and find opportunities to learn from it.
This happened at General Convention this year. We had a giveaway that we all thought was going to be super popular—gone-in-a-day kind of thing. We thought everyone would want them for their tables as a fun fidget toy. Turns out, not many folks picked one up, so after a day or two, members of the Board got curious and started asking folks why they didn’t pick up the giveaway. It turns out, folks thought it was too nice and must not be free. So, we changed how we shared them and talked about them, and folks started taking them. We also learned (and made a note for next time) that premium giveaways don’t necessarily work without a lot of conversation. Did our giveaway fail? Sort of, but we learned a lot from it, and because we didn’t get defensive that our idea didn’t work, we got to have some great conversations with folks.
One of the things I love about our core values is that they are also easily lived out in my personal life, so there’s not really a separation between how I conduct myself at work versus how I conduct myself out in the world. Recently, my kids’ bus route got changed, and we got a new bus driver. The first day with the new driver, I went up to the bus to say hello and introduce myself because I was curious and grateful. I was warmly greeted by the new driver and learned a little about her and the route changes and the challenges of the job (there’s a quick turnaround between our elementary school schedule for buses and the middle school she takes care of afterwards). We’re a small route so all the parents at the three stops were happy to show up five minutes earlier to make it easier on the driver. Curiosity for the win.
After a few weeks of school, I wrote a thank-you note from the parents at our stop and put in a coffee gift card. That afternoon, I got a thank-you card back. It turns out our driver actually works for the bus department doing other things, but because there is a bus driver shortage, she also comes and drives our kids to school. One of the things I have learned about gratitude is that when you really say thank-you to someone, you sometimes learn things that you wouldn’t know otherwise. Our amazing driver had gotten promoted from driving bus routes (and all bus drivers deserve kindness for putting up with rowdy or cranky kiddos) to working in the office, but she came back to driving when they added the new route for our neighborhood…something we asked for as parents because we only had one stop for a very large area. I was instantly even more grateful for our driver, that she would be willing to come drive the route and does it with joy and gladness. All of the kids love her; she asks them about their day and looks out for them. No one would blame her for being cranky; she’s doing a job she worked her way out of, but instead she is a gift to our community and our kids, for which I am very grateful.
Ultimately, being curious means paying attention to the world around us—looking to see what is happening and engaging with it instead of just accepting it as the way it is or always is. It is easy to get lost on our phones and not engage or continue doing something simply for the sake of tradition, even if it is not serving us well anymore, but I promise you, if we get curious about the world around us, we’ll find all sorts of adventures and people that we can connect with in new and exciting ways.
I hope this month you’ll find things to get curious about in your own life, and maybe try something new or add something to a tradition you love. (Green chiles make a great addition to apple pie, for example.) I hope you’ll share with us on social media what you’ve tried or what things you are thankful for from the past but that you might shake up and do a little differently going forward. Regardless, I hope you’ll find joy in your traditions and the experience of being curious.