I’ve often said that after I do an interview for my podcast The Final Say, I almost always feel as if I’ve spent two hours with a really wise spiritual director.

Sometimes Spirit speaks through a guest who unknowingly gives me an answer to a question I was contemplating. Other times my guest gives me something even better than an answer: a really good question.

In my last episode, Julie Davis was telling me about sharing the news of her cancer diagnosis with her craniosacral therapist. Her therapist simply asked her, “How are you going to meet this?” Julie promptly burst into tears. The question was an arrow into the heart of the matter.

How are you going to meet this?

That’s a great question for all us when facing any kind of challenge.

Are we going to meet this situation with fear or curiosity? I think we’ve all seen people face challenges by shutting down: they curl up, squeeze their fists, shut their eyes, every muscle in their body tight and contracted.

And if you try this right now, just for a few seconds, you’ll see that it takes so much energy to go through life like that. So what if instead of contracting, we expand, we open our eyes, we walk forward with our palms up, our hands outstretched with an attitude of curiosity, saying to ourselves, not, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” but “Hmm, I wonder what this experience will be like. How will I be changed? Who will I become?”

When you go into any challenge with an attitude of curiosity, it totally changes your perspective. It suddenly becomes more interesting and less intimidating and best of all if there are any gifts to be received in your experience with your hands out stretched and your  palms up you’re ready to receive them. You can’t catch much with your fists.

There are boatloads of challenge stories in the Bible, but my favorite “How are you going to meet this?” story is about Mary the mother of Jesus.

Challenge #1: an angel appears and says, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Does she run and hide under the bed? No. Scripture tells us, “she was very perplexed at this statement, and was pondering what kind of greeting this was.” She’s perplexed but open and she’s pondering the greeting. Curiosity!

Challenge #2: the angel says, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.” Then the angel proceeds to go through this infant’s LinkedIn Profile, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David;  and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”

I’d freak out hearing the Son of the Most High was coming to my womb, not to mention his weird name and future career path.  But Mary skips over all that, stays curious and open and asks the most practical of questions, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

Challenge #3: The angel answers, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the holy Child will be called the Son of God.”

Let us not forget that she is about to be married to Joseph and now has to tell him she’s pregnant. This is bad tidings of great doom. And those phrases, “come upon you,” and “overshadow you,”—I think that warrants a restraining order, don’t you?

Not Mary. She agrees to this wacky plan, visits her Aunt Elizabeth, they joyfully dance around and then Mary sings The Magnificat (!), a song of praise to God. Talk about staying open and curious and finding gifts in an experience that would be a gold medal in the Crappy News Olympics! No wonder she is an icon.

How do I want meet this?

Such a good question to ask ourselves when facing any challenge, great or small.

And as an aside: isn’t it refreshing to think about Christmas angels and Mary and Joseph in August? I think this story often gets lost in the hubbub of Christmas. We focus on her response, not how she met the situation and came to that response. We like get to the Bethlehem as soon as possible–shepherds, stars, angels, Wise Ones, animals!

So here is Mary’s entire hymn of praise from Luke chapter one (NRSV):

⁴⁶ And Mary^[f] said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
⁴⁷     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
⁴⁸ for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
⁵⁰ indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
⁵⁴ He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

To that I say, “Amen!”