My father gave me many gifts. One of them was the gift of curiosity. Daddy wondered about everything.
He actually saw the world around him. He marveled at how things were connected. He puzzled over things that did not connect or were out of place.
Sometimes when he would ask me questions about things I simply had no interest in, he would gently chide me by saying, “Don’t you have any curiosity?”
Once when we were in church, the preacher was delivering the sermon with his usual vim and vigor. Daddy appeared to be intently listening.
At one point, he leaned over to whisper something to me. I expected some great revelation. Daddy said, “Look at that woman on the end of the front row in the choir.”
I looked.
Daddy said, “She sure has a long neck.”
Before I could ignore the dirty looks of my mother, he added, “God sure is creative in how He makes different people.”
That was the best sermon I heard that day. And now, more than a half a century later, I look around and think, “Yes, Daddy, God is very creative!”
Daddy’s curiosity was not limited to just his immediate world. Television opened up a whole new world of wondering.
He wondered who the actors were, how old they were, where they were from, etc. He was somewhat frustrated that his trusty collection of encyclopedias could not give him the answers.
But one Christmas, his ship came in when someone gave him a book of all kinds of current information, including the ages of actors. He renewed it every year, so he could be up to date.
He never got the answer to his most pressing question. He wanted to know how he could still watch Lawrence Welk when he knew Lawrence had died. Now that Daddy is in heaven, he and Lawrence can work that one out.
I would love to see what Daddy would do with today’s internet. As I am busily researching random thoughts at 3 AM, I think of Daddy. I have the urge to tell him, “Yes, I have plenty of curiosity!”
And when I see anyone with a long neck, I always smile and think how creative God is!😘
