Hi Everyone-
I pray you're doing well on this wet and windy day (here in the Northwest). On my walk to the ferry one gust of wind blew my umbrella inside out and my hat off! Craziness.
What do you think of when you hear the term imagination? I think of art, stories, children, fairy tales, music, and the like. But what about God and the Church? I know I don't typically associate the two directly that often. So, I was struck by what Barbara Brown Taylor writes:
"The church's central task is an imaginative one. By that I do not mean a fanciful or fictional task, but one in which the human capacity to imagine--to form mental pictures of the self, neighbor, the world, the future, to envision new realities--is both engaged and transformed." She goes on to add that, "'Faith,' says theologian James Whitehead, 'is the enduring ability to imagine life in a certain way.'"
Personally I love that. Faith and what we're called to do and be as the Church isn't fanciful or fake, but it is imaginative. We must first imagine a world without sickness, poverty, abuse, war, and the like before we can make it a reality. It takes imagination to envision God's past, present, and future recreation of the world through the works of Jesus. On a personal level, I use imagination to see the better husband, father, friend, brother, son, student, etc. that I can be through the transforming work of the Spirit before I start becoming those things.
This brings to my mind some of the words of John Lennon from "Imagine":
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too (I view Christianity as better than religion)
Imagine all the people living life in peace
You, you may say
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
What do you think? How's your imagination today?
Grace and peace,
Lang
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It would be wonderful to have a world based on the Christian ideal; where there is no evil, no sickness.
ReplyDeleteI believe that God allows evil in the world to bring about a greater good. This greater good is one that we can often not comprehend because we fail to see (or are simply too human to see) the big picture. God's plan is like God, infinite and complicated. Also, God does not impose His will on us. We are free to accept His grace, or to turn away from it and beget evil.
In this excerpt from C.S. Lewis' novel, “Looking for the King”, the protagonist, student Tom McCord, has joined the Inklings at their favorite pub. Tom, an agnostic, asks C.S. Lewis about the problem of evil…
“Of course, there are still some tough questions”, Tom said, trying to sound as offhand as possible. “You all were talking a few minutes ago about the horrors of the last war. And now, here we are twenty years later, and it looks like we may have to go through the whole thing all over again. Don’t you think an all-good, all-powerful God could fashion a world where humans don’t inflict so much pain and suffering on each other?”
Tom expected a barrage of caustic rebuttals, but everyone around the table nodded that this was indeed a question worthy of careful thought. “It’s true”, said Lewis at last. “With the Apostle Paul, we see in a glass darkly and only in part.” He paused and then asked Tom a series of questions. “Suppose God did decide to intervene whenever he saw suffering or injustice here on earth. What would that look like?” He gave Tom a moment to think about this, then offered some specifics: “We believe that the world was once a paradise and that the scales will again be balanced on the Last Day. But what about this blighted earth of ours now? What should God do about our wars and our pain? What if he turned every bullet into a puff of air and every bayonet into a flower?”
“That would be a start, I suppose”, answered Tom, not sure he wanted to travel down this road.
“Yes, but only a start”, continued Lewis. “Why would a good God even allow things to get as far as bullets and bayonets? Shouldn’t he go back a step? Perhaps every time people get ready to tell a lie or utter a hateful word, God could paralyze their tongues or disturb the air in front of them so their words wouldn’t carry.”
“Better still”, said Tom weakly, feeling that he was headed into deep water.
“But not the best”, said Lewis. “Why not go back another step? Don’t stop with harmful deeds or hateful words. Why not erase bad thoughts from people’s minds, so that neither their words nor their deeds can hurt anyone else?”
Checkmate, thought Tom. “Because then they would cease to be people”, he answered. “That would cancel out their free will.” Tom still wasn’t convinced, but he was disappointed in himself for not putting up a better fight. Lewis reached over and patted him on the arm. “I’m not fool enough to think that settles it all”, Lewis said. “‘Great we confess is the mystery of our faith.’ It’s a vast topic. We should talk about it more sometime”, he added in a friendly tone.
That's an awesome story from Lewis. I like it a lot. Definitely hits the nail on the head. I think this opens up another way to state the importance of imagination, it gives us a vision of what God intends, which we can choose to bring into our lives/the world.
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