Packing for a Trip? Include Curiosity. Leave Behind Judgment.

“Be curious, not judgmental.”                       --Walt Whitman

$4.71 for a gallon of gas in South Hollan, Illinois. $3.71 in Owatonna, Minnesota.  $4.43 in Corning New York.  For 128 ounces of gas in Amherst, Ohio, it was $3.55. Westboro, Massachusetts clocked in at $4.46 a gallon. But the prize for my favorite place to gas up was at the Hixton Cheese Hut in Hixton, Wisconsin where the cows just might outnumber the people but where I filled up my tank at the all-American (and economical price) of just $3.46 a gallon.

Thank you, Wisconsin!

This is the inventory of gasoline prices I’ve paid on my annual August in America road trip, a journey I’ve undertaken for the past six summers, save for 2020’s COVID days. For me there is just something so relaxing and so liberating to travel by car, to take the wheel and then to go where I wish or where I want, with nothing holding me back but traffic and deciding which place I might stop at next. What exit to take, what backroads to explore and then stay for awhile.

But first, I had to leave one thing at home to fully enjoy and appreciate the adventure that lay ahead. I had to remember to not pack one specific point of view I’m too often tempted to take, especially when traveling and I encounter new people and places and foods, rituals, and cultures, which differ from my own cherished way of life.

To make it a soul expanding road trip, I had to refrain from judgment. From being judgy. From making ignorant or shortsighted judgments. I had to let go of any idea of “the norm” and thinking how others live is weird or wrong, because, well, “It’s not how I live!” Think ugly American. Think of the tourist who eschews the local food and instead tries and track down a McDonalds. The traveler who imagines that by just raising their voice and speaking louder in English, the locals might actually understand them.  Or the tourist who insists on negotiating a lower price while not taking into consideration the person who created that bauble, their dependence on this craft for their livelihood.

I may have picked up some of this travel judgyness from religion, clearly ignoring Jesus’ admonition to not judge, lest you be judged. There is something about all religions that tempts adherents to imagine themselves as better or closer to God because of their unique path to the divine. We can also fall prey sometimes to “norming”: thinking everyone else should or must live like we do. It’s the best way. Right?

The cure for this travel temptation is simple and makes not just for good trips but also a good life. It’s curiosity. That’s the attitude which encounters the world and says “WOW!” or “COOL!” or “I’ve never seen THAT before!” and then smiles. Curiosity is the commitment to bring an open mind and heart to whatever and whomever we encounter on God’s green earth, the main reason being (at least for me) that the world is such a precious place. You know, God made it and if something or someone is God made, then it is my job to treat them with respect, and even love, but most important with curiosity.

What can this situation or person teach me? What can I learn from this fellow child of God who seems, at first glance, so different than me?  What new things can I try for the first time?! That’s what really gets my travel blood flowing—the chance to try something I’ve never done before, or to meet someone I’ve never met before.

So, on this trip I was introduced to Friday night lights and big-time high school football in southern Ohio. What a hoot! Four thousand cheering fans and two marching bands and my friend’s son Will so excited to start his very first varsity game. GO BRONCOS! This is the road trip I finally got to visit the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota and learn everything there is to know about this culinary delight. I’m serious—for me, a joy in traveling is visiting not just the obvious but also the offbeat, the odd and the one of a kind and that is absolutely SPAM!  On my way through Appalachia, I stopped in the small town of Berea, Kentucky and was introduced to that region’s beautiful, handcrafted goods.  If I was not curious, I might have just passed it by.

What are you missing because judgment or fear of the unknown is holding you back? This world is such a spectacular, God created place, just overflowing with so, so much to experience. To eat. New music to listen to. New opinions to consider. New people who are just waiting to become a new friend.

But first on this road trip called life, we have to let go of the need to judge and embrace the spiritual virtue of curiosity. To wake up each and every day and ask, “OK world: what do you have to show me today?! What new idea am I needing to learn? Who is my next life teacher?”

Now it’s back to the road for the final few days of my trip. I can’t wait to see what today has in store for me. For you too, I pray.

Just be curious.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.