January 14, 2024

1 Samuel 3:1-20
John 1:43-51

The ‘elepaio was hungry. I’m not sure why. Any time I’ve been walking around the forested areas of Hawai’i, there have been lots of bugs. Bugs here, bugs there, bugs everywhere. Lots of bugs.

Mostly the bugs make me uncomfortable. I’m not an ‘elepaio. To an ‘elepaio, those are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

For some reason, that day, the ‘elepaio wasn’t finding many bugs.

Most ‘elepaio are known to be curious. They flit about checking tree trunks and limbs, and fallen trees, for bugs on the bark and bugs that have burrowed into the bark. They look carefully around the leaves and twigs for the movement that indicates a bug, a snack, a meal. If you’re walking about in their territory, they’re likely to come take a look at you and check you out. In old times, canoe makers would watch them to see what trees had lots of bugs – which made them bad for canoes – and the curious ‘elepaio would watch them in reply.

This ‘elepaio was an exception. He’d had some very unpleasant experiences with ‘io and pueo, and even a mongoose or two. He wouldn’t move far from his chosen trees to see what the movement in other branches was all about. And as I said, he wasn’t finding a lot of bugs in his chosen trees.

“I’m hungry,” he grumped aloud.

“I’m not,” said another ‘elepaio in a neighboring tree.

“There’s no bugs here,” he told her.

“There’s bugs here,” she told him.

“I think the bugs have all gone away,” he sighed.

“If they have, they’ve all come here,” she said.

“I’m hungry,” he moaned.

“I think you’re not listening,” she said.

So she flew over and perched right next to him and gave him a gentle tap with her beak.

“There’s bugs a-plenty in that tree,” she said. “More than you and I could eat in a lifetime.”

“They’ve all gone away, I’m sure,” he said.

She nearly flew away in frustration at that, but after a moment, she said, “Come and see.”

“I don’t dare,” he told her. “What about ‘io and pueo and mongoose?”

“You’ll only find out if you come and see,” she told him.

Curiosity is a complicated thing. Curiosity helps us learn new things, but sometimes those things are things we’d rather not know. Curiosity gives us new experiences, but sometimes those are experiences we’d rather not have. Curiosity had led him to the ‘io and the pueo and the mongoose. Would curiosity bring him to enough bugs that they’d feed him for a lifetime? How curious did he dare to be?

His friend said, “Come and see.” She’d seen. She’d learned. She’d experienced. She invited.

He went, and saw, and ate.

by Eric Anderson

Author’s Note: I wrote this story for worship at Church of the Holy Cross UCC on January 14, 2024. Unfortunately, I fell ill and wasn’t able to tell it live.

Photo of an ‘elepaio by Dominic Sherony – Hawaii Elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52150179.