DAY 13

Be curious not judgemental

I’ve loved watching the TV series ‘Ted Lasso’ and I recommend it! It’s about an American football coach who is hired to coach a fictional English premier league football club. Lots of funny moments ensue as Ted tries to understand the English game accompanied by his sidekick Coach Beard, also American, but who loves English football and acts as his cultural interpreter.

Here Ted is baffled by how the same word in English can have 3 very disparate meanings:

Ted: ‘So if I was to get fired for putting my cleats in the trunk of my car…’
Coach Beard: ‘Yep, you’d get the boot for putting your boots in the boot.’

There’s a scene in a pub, someone has nicknamed Ted’s Darts’ hustle, were Ted is attempting to help his boss who is being humiliated by her ex-husband. To deflect attention Ted playfully throws some darts with his weak hand. Rupert (the ex-husband) then challenges Ted to a serious game of darts assuming the hapless Ted will be hopeless at this English game as well. As Ted’s about to throw 2 triple 20’s and a bullseye to win the game, he says:

“You know Rupert, guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years I could never understand  it, and it used to really bother me. But then one day I was driving my little boy to school and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman and it was painted on the wall there, and it said, ‘Be curious not judgemental’ and I liked that. So I get back in my car and I’m driving to work and all of a sudden it hits me, all of them fellas that used to belittle me, not a single one of them was curious. You know they thought they had everything figured out and so they judged everything and everyone. And I realised that their underestimating me, who I was, had nothing to do with it. You see, if they were curious they would have asked me questions - you know, questions like, have you played a lot of darts Ted? To which I would have answered, ‘Yes Sir, every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from aged 10 til I’s sixteen when he passed away.’ ” He then goes on to win the game!

Judging everyone, (including ourselves), and everything, is tiring and can wear us out. It also creates a cynicism which can inoculate us against genuine curiosity in each other.

Jesus’ hustle with Herod and the rulers and authorities of his day,  who were assuming they were dealing with a power seeker and an empire builder like themselves, means that today we are still talking about Jesus, the servant king. And similarly, it’s perhaps the most curious of the Pharisees, Nicodemus, and his question that we remember today: ‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ You’ll find Jesus’ answer in John’s Gospel chapter 3.