Pure Imagination
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We each were born with the powers of creativity. While we’re not all going to be famous artists or poets or musicians, we each have the faculties to use our imagination to create. To use these gifts allows us to change our relationship with the world around us.
Mid-20th century process theologian Henry Nelson Wieman writes about the power of creativity as the ultimate source of goodness. In The Source of Human Good, he explained:
The creative event weaves a web of meaning between individuals and groups and between the organism and its environment. Out of disruptions and conflicts which would otherwise be destructive, it creates vivifying contrasts of quality…. In weaving the web of richer meaning, the creative event transforms the individual so that he [sic] is more of a person.
To Wieman, the ultimate power of any being is its ability to create—to deepen and transform its relationship with those things around it. As humans, we use this power of creativity, including our powers of imagination, to create meaning by interacting with the world in new and different ways.
Creativity and imagination create community. Weaving together words or capturing the play of light in the trees both create a common cultural reference point for the people who see and hear them. They allow people to discuss, to interpret, to imagine for themselves what those words might mean or what that light might look like.
Philosopher and theologian Rabbi Jonathan Sacks identifies creativity as one of the most important virtues to cultivate in our increasingly complex world. In his book The Dignity of Difference, Sacks argues for the importance of education, which he thinks is the key to developing creativity: “Creativity is itself one of the most important gifts with which any socioeconomic group can be endowed.”
Creative imagination is not just nice. It’s necessary—for connections with the world around us and with others, to enrich our lives and to stimulate our mind. It is necessary for a deep and full spiritual life. Imagination is also necessary to survive when times are rough. Throughout time, those facing hardship and oppression have turned inwards for inspiration for living, even in the harshest of conditions.
I once met with a group of colleagues seeking to create resources for congregations to embrace multiculturalism in authentic and worshipful ways. As part of our meeting, we sang—a lot—which was wonderful. We began and ended each session with song, and we were careful to put each song into a cultural context that allowed us to connect with its origins and meaning.
One morning I was slated to lead us in song, and I chose the hymn “Over My Head.” Perhaps you know it: “Over my head, I hear music in the air… There must be a God somewhere.”
The hymn comes from African-American slave communities in pre-Civil War America. Unlike so many other songs of that period, it had no hidden meaning about escape or freedom. It was sung, to remind slaves that wherever they heard music, God was present; that song, no matter how harsh their circumstances, could bring them to a place of peace and worship.
It was meant as a reminder that song sparks our imagination—imagination that brings us to another place. For slaves toiling in the fields, this imagination was life-saving. It allowed them to face another day.
The ability to imagine what is not goes hand-in-hand with the ability to dream up what could be, and leads us to yearn for the possible instead of finding complacency in the present.
In their book, Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat quote poet Percy Shelley: “The great instrument of moral good is imagination.” They take a lesson from that: “We often forget that there are creative ways of bringing about change in our communities and society at large…. When Jesus suggests we love our enemies, he is imaginatively expanding our concept of what it means to be a good person.”
Indeed, the teachings of great moral leaders throughout time have relied upon human imagination to see a world that did not exist—and upon human creativity to make that world a reality. Martin Luther King, Jr. is as famous for his dream as for his hands-on work of community organizing, but both required him to imagine a better future for people of all races and ethnicities.
Both required him to communicate that vision to others, and to have them imagine it also. Both required him to inspire people to dive in and do the work that needed to be done in order to bring our nation to a place that existed only in the collective imagination.
Imagination is necessary to dream. Dreams are necessary to form goals. Goals are necessary to make change. If we want to build a world better than the one we have today, change will be necessary, even when it’s not easy.
Together, we can dream up better days, better ways of relating to each other, better ways of being in harmony with the web of life we’re a part of, better ways to see the world. Together, we make that imagination reality.
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