Veith & Ristuccia in Imagination Redeemed, suggest that the imagination allows us to “relive the past and anticipate the future”. But of course, remembering and speculating do this as well. How is the imagination different? Some ask, “Isn’t it just another kind of thinking?” Well yes, but at the same time no!
My formal definition of imagination is that “it is
an intellectual activity of mind that involves the connection of prior and new
knowledge and experiences to help us grasp beyond the known and the
understandable” Cairney (p.124). Creativity on the other hand is a response to
our imaginations, that helps us to express, understand and share, that which
otherwise might seem almost unknowable. Creativity also allows us to transform
these deep meanings into forms that help us and others, grasp something of the
meaning being communicated.
As a Christian, while I believe that God reveals
truth through his word by the power of his Spirit, I also believe he gave us
imaginations that can help us as we plumb the depths of the truth in his word. But
of course, we must exercise care with our imaginations as we seek the knowledge
of God and what he teaches us from his word. We are warned in many places in Scripture
against the improper use of the mind. For example, in 2 Corinthians 10:5, where
Paul is defending his ministry against opponents who were discrediting him, he
wrote “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against
the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
Christ” (NIV).
I believe that as educators and Christians we have
been badly served by the improper sidelining of the gift of the imagination, that
God in his kindness gave to us alone, and not to any other creatures. I argue
in my book that there are 4 primary reasons that God gave it to us.
First, the imagination is a human characteristic that
is part of who we are; it is part of the CHARACTER God gave to us.
Second, it has been given to us by God to help us
understand who he is, as well as to grasp something of our purpose as his
creatures, who he made to be supported within COMMUNITY.
Third, the imagination is implicated in how God
reveals truth to us, and draws us into a relationship with him through our SALVATION
in and through Christ.
Fourth, the imagination is a human quality that is implicated
in how our desires are shaped, and our true IDENTITY found as his chosen
children.
1.
Imagination
and CHARACTER
The human imagination is one of the cornerstones of
our nature and character. While creativity
is connected, and interrelated with the imagination, it is different and we
should try not to confuse the two. Imagination is a gift of God that allows us
to appreciate, understand, respond to, and marvel at the things he has done.
God
is of course imaginative, and in his kindness and mercy, he made us as
creatures able to use imaginations to help us understand his purposes for us as
creatures made in his image.
TrevorHart writes, that “Imagination acts to perpetuate a fragment of beauty already
in the world” (Hart). They are part of the way we receive and reciprocate the
knowledge and beauty of God.
Imagination
is expressed and used in varied ways, including our words, emotions, actions,
and imaginings, and they can reveal knowledge and truth, as well as directing
our passions and motivations.
I
see it as the intellectual activity of the mind that connects prior and new
knowledge and experiences, with our grasping after the unknown. It is part of
the way we make sense of and respond to our world, but it also helps us to grasp
that there is a world beyond.
BernardMeland suggested that beyond “constructive understanding” is another level of
application of the imagination, that is implicated in questions or reflections
on one’s human destiny. This he suggested requires metaphysics and theology as
well. Only at the intersection of these varied resources for thinking and
imagining can we grapple with truth and the unknown. This is character shaping!
2.
Imagination and COMMUNITY.
While
the imagination can be a solitary task, it is also something that we use and
exercise within COMMUNITY.
Communities are relational groups of humans in which we live with others and
seek to love, explore, learn, understand and support one another.
In
many ways, this is why the informal networks of life beat the formal structures
of education hands down. They can have a
strong influence on the ‘heart’, life priorities, hopes and dreams. It
is in communities, where young people are able to ‘speak into’ the lives of
their friends in ways that few teachers and even parents can. As Lave &Wenger stressed, our students dwell together in multiple communities of
practice that shape minds, lives, expectations, imaginations and hoped for
futures.
Sadly,
some children in our schools see little relevance for school to their worlds
and the things that matter to them. The communities that matter most for them
are outside the formal structures and life of school.
The
extent to which we engage the world with our imaginations has a strong
relationship to the multiple communities in which we are participants, members
and dwellers. And in particular, it influences the allegiances we form with
varied ‘Communities of Practice’.
The
Apostle Paul understood the need for human transformation, as the early church
emerged and people from varied backgrounds came together. In his writing, he
often challenged followers of Christ to imagine different futures, different
possibilities, different communities centred on Christ as early Christians
lived, served and grew in community. And imagination was implicated! In
Ephesians 2:1-10, we read how Paul challenged this new community of believers
to grasp that they were no longer bound by their past. How else can we grasp
the enormity of what God promises us in verses 6 & 7.
6 And God
raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in
Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show
the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ
Jesus. 8
3.
The imagination and ETERNITY
Christian
formation in the school and family is also about nurturing and growing the
citizen on this earth with an orientation toward the next. We are ‘in-between’
people. Our students need to keep firmly in mind that this life isn’t all that
there is. They must have a focus on eternity!! What we want our children to
become in the world today, should be directed to what they are destined to
become in the kingdom of God. Our true citizenship is elsewhere! Paul wrote to
the Philippians:
Join together
in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a
model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I
have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as
enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is
destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.
Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is
in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who,
by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will
transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil
3:17-21)
The
focus of a Christian pedagogy is
not the building of better citizens to successfully take their place in civil
society (although this might be important), but rather the maturing of children
in Christ.
As
Paul tells the Philippian church, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we
await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be
like his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject all things to
himself (Phil 3:20–21).” The stories of life have a big impact on us under the
direction of God’s Spirit.
When
I first heard someone teach from Matthew 11:28-30 my imagination was captured
by God! Through the power of his Holy Spirit, I was able to grasp the
possibility that I could have an eternal existence! ETERNITY was now emblazoned on my heart and in my mind. As well as a
God-given capacity to think, understand, comprehend and reflect, my God given
capacity to imagine was implicated in how I was able to grasp God’s revelation
to me through his word.
I
had caught a glimpse of God’s kingdom and his Son. My imagination had been
captured by God! I was able to glimpse that I could have an eternal existence! ETERNITY was now emblazoned in my heart
and mind.
4.
Imagination and IDENTITY
God
also uses our imaginations in shaping our IDENTITY.
Only God can help our students to grasp that this life isn’t all that there is.
As they are confronted by the truth of the Bible, God will can open their minds
to reconsider the things that matter. Their minds and imaginations also be
captured by God as our students begin to grasp that their very IDENTITY must be
established in Jesus if they are to be the people God made them to be! Only in
relationship to him can they live the fulfilled life that they were meant to
live in and through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
We
are to strive to make school a place where CHARACTER
is shaped in COMMUNITY, as we teach
our students and nurture them towards ETERNAL
salvation in Christ. We are to help them to grow, and understand that their
true IDENTITY is to be found only in
Christ. What we want our children to become in the world today, should be
directed to what they are destined to become in the kingdom of God.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s
special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out
of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a
people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but
now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
As
our students arrive in our schools and classrooms, they don’t come as clean
slates. Instead, they come with memories and hopes, and imagination is related
to both. And of course, their imaginations may well have taken them to places
other than God!
Our
experiences and memories in concert with our imaginations can take us in many
directions. These are ‘identity forming’ experiences in life. Some of our
memories can lead to a range of human emotions including pride, bitterness,
lust, anger, even regret. But God can take our memories captive as well as our
imaginations.
In
1 Corinthians (15:33-38) - a passage in which Paul that urges his readers to
stop sinning - we find him urging his readers and hearers to a conversion of
the imagination. As Richard Hays in 'The Conversion of the Imagination' explains, “He was calling Gentiles to
understand their identity anew in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ”.
Jews
and Gentiles were being challenged by the gospel to reevaluate their
identities. Such a profound shift in perspective - so profound that our very
imaginations are captured - requires reason, memory, and the imagination as the
Spirit of God transforms us.
This
transformation in the early church was achieved as Paul constantly fostered and
sustained by what Richard Hays calls “a process of bringing the community’s
beliefs and practices into critical confrontation with the gospel story.” This Hays
suggests calls for a “conversion of the imagination.”
As
a teacher, you witness young people before your very eyes seeking to transition
from one identity to another. As children and adults transition from one state
to another, there is always the possibility for reinvention. And of course, the
imagination is implicated in such identity shifts.
Imagination is central to how our
student minds are engaged, hopes are formed, aspirations are primed,
friendships are conceived, and supported. As students engage in the life of the
school and the communities of practice they inhabit, imagination plays a key
role in connecting who they are, who they wish to become, and what is critical
to their sense of belonging.
Summing Up
Imagination
is a gift from God. He made us to know and worship him, and built within us,
the capacity to imagine the future and to try to make sense of the past. Nowhere
is our imagination more important than in helping us understand the depth of
meaning of God’s word to us spoken by the prophets, teachers, disciples, and of
course through his Son.
The
imagination is a gift from God for life and indeed is part of the way he draws
us to himself. Anthony Esolen in 'Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of your Child' has a delightful way of expressing the tension
between what we know and what we do not know and have yet to discover:
“The
imagination opens out not principally to what it knows and finds familiar, but
to what it does not know, what it finds strange, half hidden, robed with
inaccessible light.”
This
of course, is why stimulating the imaginations of our children is so critical.
Like
knowledge, skills, and abilities of varied kinds, imaginations are given to us
in order to glorify God. Our God reveals the purposes for which he created us,
as we seek to cope and respond to life’s experiences. He does this in parallel
with our encounters with his revealed word. At God’s initiative, he uses his
word and our imaginations to convict, rebuke, and turn us from rebellion to
acceptance of him as Lord and Savior.
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