Sunday Service

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.

~ Shunryu Suzuki

Great Doubt, Great Awakening. Little Doubt, Little Awakening. No Doubt, Fast Asleep

~ Zen Maxim

The place where we are right

is hard and trampled like a yard.

But doubts and loves

dig up the world…

And a whisper will be heard in the place

where the ruined

house once stood.

~ Yehuda Amichai

There’s something in us that likes to be lost. There’s contentment in the moment of arrival, but isn’t the seeking part of the journey when we feel most alive? Nothing’s better than that bend in the road when we realize anything could be around the corner. Who wants the feeling of “I figured it out!” when instead you can live in the state of “What could it be?!” The curious unknown is what keeps us moving, and grateful to be alive.

~ Rev. Scott Tayler

Maybe answers are just resting places on the way to better questions.

~ Mark Causey

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

~ Rumi

People go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

~ Saint Augustine

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Awakening Curiosity')

Each of us is shaped as much by the quality of the questions we are asking as by the answers we have it in us to give.

~ Krista Tippett

The ability to ask beautiful questions, often in very unbeautiful moments, is one of the great disciplines of a human life. And a beautiful question starts to shape your identity as much by asking it as it does by having it answered. You just have to keep asking.

~ David Whyte

My grandmother, an incredibly gifted, creative, if not eccentric woman, imparted me with these simple but powerful words. She said: “To be interesting, Kate, you have to be interested.” Curiosity not only makes the world interesting, it makes you interesting.

~ Kate Berardo

Everyone and everything around you is your teacher.

~ Ken Keye

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

~ James Joyce

When people are extremely angry and even hostile with the way they express an opposition to something, the challenge is to figure out what it is they're trying to protect.

~ Mónica Guzmán

If you want to know why you do something, stop doing it and see what happens.

~ Michael A. Singer

Work becomes great when curiosity drives it beyond obligation.

~ Shane Parrish

The best spiritual instruction is to wake up in the morning and say, “I wonder what's going to happen today.”

~ Pema Chodron

The opposite of anxiety is not calm, it’s not confidence. The opposite of anxiety is curiosity. Anxiety is worrying: OH NO What is going to happen? And curiosity is OH, WOW, I wonder what could happen?

~ Rev. Sara Goodman

Be curious, not judgmental.

~ Attributed to Walt Whitman, Made Famous by Ted Lasso

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Awakening Curiosity’)

May 7, 2026

This list of questions is an aid for deep reflection. How you answer them is often less important than the journey they take you on.

So, read through the list of questions 2-3 times until one question sticks out for you and captures your attention, or as some faith traditions say, until one of the questions “shimmers.” Or as we like to say, “Read over them until one of the questions picks you.”

Then reflect on that question using one or all of these questions:

●       What is going on in my life right now that makes this question so pronounced for me?

●       What might my inner wisdom be trying to say to me through this question?

●       How might this question be trying to wake me up or get me to realize something through this question?

●       How might Life or my inner wisdom be trying to offer me a word of comfort or challenge through this question?

1. During your childhood, what were you not allowed to be curious about? How did that shape who you are today?

2. During childhood, what one or two things were you most curious about? How do you see an echo of that in your life today?

3. Has being curious ever come at a cost for you?

4. Is it time to be more curious about what your body is trying to tell you?

5. What is the greatest adventure that your curiosity took you on? What did that adventure teach you about yourself?

6. Have you ever been punished for being curious? Have you ever punished someone else for being curious?

7. Do you think you are worth someone being curious about? Have you always felt that way?

8. When it comes to you worrying about the future or being curious about it, which one wins?

9. Which were you taught was more important: the “expert mind” or the “beginner’s mind”?

10. What familiar thing (a person, object, or routine) in your life is asking you to approach it with a beginner’s mind?

11. Have you ever opened a Pandora’s box of your own? What’s one thing about that moment you’d do differently?

12. If a crystal ball could reveal something about yourself, your future, or anything else, what would you want to know?

13. How has approaching mistakes with curiosity rather than shame healed you and helped you heal others?

14. What’s your question? Your question may not be listed above. As always, if the above questions don't include what life is asking from you, spend the month listening to your days to find it. 

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Awakening Curiosity')

UU minister, Victoria Safford, speaks of curiosity using the metaphor of perception and sight. She writes:

“To see, simply to look and to see, is an ethical act and intentional choice; to see, with open eyes, is a spiritual practice and thus a risk, for it can open you to ways of knowing the world and loving it that will lead to inevitable consequences. The awakened [and curious] eye is a conscious eye, a willful eye, and brave, because to see things as they are, each in its own truth, will make you very vulnerable.”

Consequences. We rarely think of curiosity in terms of consequences. But Rev. Safford seems to have it right. There is a type of curiosity that is about enjoyment and adventure. This way of understanding curiosity invites us to experience life as a playground. But when we look closely at our lives we realize there’s another type of curiosity at play. This kind leads us, not to playgrounds, but into dark alleys and pathless woods. It demands, not just our attention, but our courage. It’s not interested in entertaining us with the wonders of the world. Instead, it wants to enlist us in the work of the world.

Just think of how we UUs talk about our dances with curiosity. We don’t just tell stories about peppering our poor Sunday School teachers with “Why?!” and “Who says?!”; we tell stories about how asking why got us kicked out of Sunday School. We don’t just talk about being open-minded; we talk about how our open-mindedness led us to leave home and family and walk a lonelier path than we wanted. And recently, many of us have leaned into the hard work of being curious about our role in upholding institutional racism and structures of white supremacy, which is clearly about more than learning new and interesting things about ourselves.

And here’s the important insight revealed by these stories: As hard as these paths of curiosity are, we are grateful for them! Which in turn suggests that there is a part of us that doesn’t want curiosity to just be fun or interesting. It wants curiosity to change us, to make us anew. This part of us wants to be altered, not just enriched. 

So, maybe we need to tweak this month’s theme a bit. Maybe, what we need to hear is not simply “Awaken your curiosity!” but “Awaken the kind of curiosity that comes with consequences!”

Friends, it is, of course, fine to be inquisitive for the fun of it. At the same time, we must remember that curiosity is not a game. Well, actually, maybe it’s the greatest game. The one that drives us to constantly become more, for our sakes and for the sake of others.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Awakening Curiosity')

Ask Them About Curiosity

One of the best ways to explore our monthly themes is to have conversations about them with people who are

close to you. It’s also a great way to deepen our relationships! Below is a list of questions to guide your conversation. Be sure to let your conversation partner know in advance that this won’t be a typical conversation.

Remember to also answer the questions yourself as they are meant to support a conversation, not just a time of

quizzing them.

Curiosity Questions:

●       Are you someone who is mainly curious about the world out there or the world inside you?

●       During your childhood, what were you not allowed to be curious about? And how did that shape who you are today?

●       During childhood, what one or two things were you most curious about? How do you see an echo of that in your life today?

●       If a crystal ball could reveal something about yourself, your future, or anything else, what would you want to know?

●       Have you ever been punished for being curious? Have you ever punished someone else for being curious?

●       When it comes to you worrying about the future or being curious about it, which one wins?

●       What aspect of your current stage of life are you most curious about? How about your upcoming stage of life?

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Awakening Curiosity’)

Your List of Curiosities 

Another great way to get curious about yourself is to look at the things that have grabbed your curiosity over your life. In short, this exercise invites you to create a list of your curiosities. (It might help to also think of this as listing your obsessions.)

We suggest you do this by dividing the list according to the stages of your life. For instance, childhood, college, early adulthood, midlife, later life.

Be as specific as possible. In other words, when thinking of your childhood curiosities, list “Luke Skywalker” rather than “Star Wars.” Or when listing your midlife curiosities, list “How wine is made” rather than “wine.” Or when you turn to your later life list, write down “The way fear works in my life,” rather than “Myself.”

When you feel that your list is complete, or complete enough, look it over to see what it says about you. Look for patterns or gaps. What surprises you about the list? What does it say about how much you’ve changed or grown? Or not changed or grown?

Extra mile options:

• Show your list to someone close to you and ask them what strikes them about the list? What do they think it says about you? What did they learn about you because of the list? What do they think is missing?

• Take 10-15 of your curiosities and turn them into a poem. Keep it simple and just list your 10-15 in some creative way. It could be as straight-forward as ordering them by age or by the letter they start with. Trust your gut; the order you need will come to you.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Awakening Curiosity')

Spiritual and religious traditions encourage and help us love the life we have. But it is fun - and often instructive - to imagine the life we would live if anything was possible.

So, for this exercise, lean into your imagination and write a poem or journal-sized reflection on what you would be if another life was possible. Be as silly or serious, playful or profound as you like. And remember, sometimes it helps to revisit what you dreamed about becoming when you were a child.

So what will it be? A trapeze artist? An impressionist painter? A member of King Aurther’s court? A costume designer for movies set in the Victorian era? The owner of your own restaurant? The first person to walk on Mars? A death doula? A hermit? A circus clown? An urban planner of the first zero emission city? Spiderman?

Whether you take the playful or profound route, be sure to dedicate part of your writing to reflecting on the longing that lies at the center of your choice. This is where the deeper work lies. Because while you may not really be able to be a trapeze artist, it’s certainly possible to satisfy that longing to escape the “gravity” of worry that sits at the center of that high-flying choice. Or to put it another way, you do not need to become that imagined version of yourself to access what it represents.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2026 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Embracing Possibility')