CURIOSITY

A significant part of Poole has been in gridlock the past two days, with the opening of John Lewis. It seems to have attracted considerably more attention than the unveiling of any of our recently installed sculptures.

As the traffic was backed up from the store to outside our church building yesterday, I decided to take a walk down the hill (and up the other side) to see what all the fuss was about. And there were hundreds of people there.



It is possible that most of those queuing to get into the store were, like me, simply interested in observing the cultural phenomenon unfolding before us. But I think most of them actually wanted to see what was in store, in the store. As I had got there, I joined them and went inside as well. And you know what? It’s a shop; that sells things.

Hard to get excited about. Although some people obviously were. Grace reported that one of the other mums at the school gate managed to attract a large crowd simply by announcing, “I’ve been to John Lewis!”

But whatever the ostensible motivation for visiting the store, the underlying reason is little more than curiosity. We humans are a curious lot. If we weren’t curious we would still be living in caves and eating our buffalo fresh carved from the carcass. It is our curiosity that has led us into all our discoveries and social development, as well as often leading us into trouble.

It was curiosity that led to four times the normal audience tuning into Question Time last night to see how Nick Griffen would come across.

I’m not sure there was anything more surprising about what the BNP leader said than there was about what was inside John Lewis. But we do like to look.

Often, though, the most interesting things happen where we are not looking, or, as Jesus put it, "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."

Subtle.