To Stir or To Deepen?

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Today I am reflecting on the spiritual importance of the desire for truth, which sounds abstract until we realize it is really about curiosity. If we lose the desire to know what is true, we stop growing. We become complacent. We drift.

Curiosity gives us a “lean-in posture” toward the world, toward God, and toward one another. It especially matters in hard conversations. The question becomes simple and searching: are we trying to stir or deepen? Stirring can create “creative tension,” but anger can also become what Swedenborgian tradition calls a “pleasure of insanity,” that strange satisfaction of spinning around shared resentment.

Deepening asks more of us. It asks us to “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” That kind of listening softens the edges. It opens space for love. And perhaps this is how heaven greets us, with deep, loving curiosity, grace, peace, joy, and a desire to know the truth of who we are. So today, I want to practice stirring a great conversation, stirring a deep conversation, and letting God lead me toward understanding.